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2004 Multicultural Diversity Awards
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MC Center Research and Practice Award
The MC Center Research and Practice Award goes to Amanda R. Hitchings and Adriana DiPasquale, respectively, who are 2004 Psy.D. graduates. Amanda and Adriana are the first recipients of the MC Center Research and Practice Award.
Amanda R. Hitchings is given the MC Center Research and Practice Award for her dissertation, Pregnancy Wellness Program’s Collaborative Approach to Prenatal Care: Initial Medical Provider and Patient Satisfaction.
PWP was developed by Amanda Hitchings in The Cheshire Medical Center (TCMC), Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Keene, New Hampshire, to address the biopsychosocial needs of rural women experiencing at-risk pregnancy. The primary goal of the project was to develop a collaborative prenatal program.
One hundred and five adolescents and adults received services within PWP in 3 years. Specific functions of PWP included psychosocial assessment, counseling, consultation, and triage, while, at the same time, increasing natural support systems, coordinating in-house and community services, and/or making referral to a doula for help during labor and delivery.
The program offered individualized psychological interventions and education that included prenatal education, stress management, pain management, and social skills development. The second goal was to evaluate the satisfaction of providers and patients with PWP. The satisfaction evaluation included four components: (a) a 1-year satisfaction interview with 10 care providers; (b) a 2-year follow-up satisfaction interview with the same care providers; (c) a descriptive analyses of characteristics of 87 eligible patients; and (d) post-treatment patient satisfaction, patient perception of clinician credibility; and patient open-ended statements on the effectiveness of services.
Providers and patients reported high satisfaction with PWP. Providers perceived the program to be effective in addressing the psychosocial needs of their patients, in reducing their patient load, and in being a potential money-saver for the clinic. A majority of the patients expressed overall satisfaction with PWP and a desire for PWP to continue.
The PWP clinician was perceived as highly credible and as a good fit for patient needs. Patients reported in open-ended statements increased confidence in changing their health status. Participants suggested the expansion of services like PWP to the entire scope of OBGyn needs, such as menopause, incontinence, postpartum, and infertility. Using these findings, future directions for program evaluation were provided.
Dr. Hitchings holds the position of Air Force Captain at her internship with Wilford Hall Medical Center, TX. She she will continue her postdoctoral work in the U.S. Air Force.
Adriana DiPasquale is given the MC Center Research and Practice award for her dissertation, Relationships of Therapist Characteristics with Self-Reported Multicultural Competence.
Adriana re-examined a national archived data set. Her findings suggested that training programs should emphasize clinical work with minority populations and provide training opportunities with a reflective experiential process.
The results indicated that education/training variables, such as participation in consciousness-raising multicultural workshops and clinical work with minority clients, significantly contributed to self-reported multicultural competence in mental health professionals. This finding held true also for minority professionals, even though they were inherently privileged to cultural and racial awareness through their socialization.
Demographic characteristics such as age, income, and non-traditional relationship status were also related to an increase in self-reported multicultural competence in separate analyses for White participants and for minority participants. One implication is that therapists need to examine their identities as related to their salient demographic characteristics.
Identifying constructs that make up one’s cultural identity, beyond racial/ethnic designation, can be useful in developing a deeper understanding of a therapist’s contextual identities and allows the therapist to develop different ways in connecting with culturally diverse clients.
Dr. DiPasquale did her predoctoral internship at University of Cincinnati’s Psychological Services Center, where she is completing her postdoctoral work.
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