Active Grants

The School of Nursing promotes, improves, and sustains human health through evidence-based education and advances in research and practice.

Nursing Faculty are involved in a variety of research projects, publications and presentations. Nursing students work alongside faculty to bring new and innovative ideas into fruition.

Below, explore the School of Nursing's active grants.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Jinyoung Kim

Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, R56

Amount Awarded: $515,655

Period: 9/20/19-8/31/22

Goals: To (1) investigate physiological differences among symptom subtypes of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and to correlate changes in physiological biomarkers and symptom changes in each symptom subtype.

Principal Investigator: Dr. June Cho

Funding Agency: NIGMS via CTRIN Pilot Grant

Amount Awarded: $65,891

Period: 10/16/19-6/30/22

Goals: To (1) examine the associations between racial/ethnic differences in VLBW preterm birth and maternal demographic factors, (2) examine the associations between demographic factors and levels of testosterone and cortisol, and (3) examine the associations of demographic actors and the levels of hormonal biomarkers with mental health problems (depressive symptoms, anxiety, and perceived stress) and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (no healthy eating, no physical activity, and use of cigarettes and alcohol).

Principal Investigator: Dieu-My Tran, PhD, RN, CNE

Funding Agency: MW CTR-IN Pilot Grant

Amount Awarded: $65,958

Period: 7/1/2020-6/30/2022

Goal: We seek to test an intervention, mHealth to Optimize BP Improvement (MOBILE), that takes advantage of existing applications and our prior work to allow participants to (1) perform self-measured blood pressure monitoring; (2) receive feedback from a cloud-based CVD detection platform; and (3) receive tailored text messages that encourage engagement in BP reduction behavior. mHealth technology provides an ideal way to deliver healthcare interventions to young adults.17,27-31 Text messaging is especially appealing to college students, more than 91% of whom use smartphones as their main communicating device.32 For this study, we will recruit 42 college students, ages 18 to 29, with elevated BP to participate in formative developmental project and then a 4-week two-armed trial of MOBILE.

Aims:

  • Aim 1. To refine the MOBILE intervention during a formative phase involving 8-10 students. Outcomes will include finalized motivation-level-tailored text messages designed to prompt behavior change and a self-administered motivational scale to be employed in the Aim 2 and Exploratory Aim study.
  • Aim 2. To evaluate the feasibility of implementing the MOBILE intervention in 32 college students with elevated BP. We will operationalize MOBILE feasibility as: (a) acceptability to subjects, (b) participation rate, (c) texts delivered and opened, (d) fidelity to daily BP measurement protocol, (e) reported technical problems and challenges, and (f) recruitment and attrition rates.
  • Exploratory Aim. To examine the preliminary impact of the MOBILE intervention on BP reduction (primary outcome) along with sodium intake and hypertension knowledge improvement (secondary outcomes) among 32 college students with elevated BP. Hypothesis: The intervention group will have a significantly greater reduction in BP and sodium intake and greater increase in HTN knowledge from baseline to completion, compared to control group.

Principal Investigator: Andrew Thomas Reyes, Ph.D., MSN, RN

Funding Agency: Mountain West CTR-IN

Amount Awarded: $66,000

Period: 07/15/2021 – 06/30/2022

Goal: To (1) modify and refine the previously developed mindfulness- and acceptance based smartphone app intervention to specifically tailor for nurses traumatized by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic; and determine the feasibility, acceptability, and initial efficacy of the intervention.

Principal Investigator: Andrew Thomas Reyes, Ph.D., MSN, RN

Funding Agency: UNLV Faculty Opportunity Award

Amount Awarded: $19,954

Period: 07/01/2021 – 06/30/2022

Goals: To (1) refine the intervention based on the feedback and recommendations from the pilot single-arm feasibility study, and (2) test the feasibility and acceptability of the mindfulness- and acceptance based smartphone app intervention in a small-scale RCT for a prospective, fully powered, larger-scale RCT study.

Principal Investigator: Angela Silvestri-Elmore, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, CNE

Funding Agency: HRSA

Amount Awarded: $378,817

Period: 07/01/2020 – 06/30/2022

Goals: To provide loans for nursing students pursuing graduate nursing degrees

Principal Investigator: Du Feng, PhD

Funding Agency: HRSA

Amount Awarded:

Period: 07/01/2021 – 06/30/2022

Goals: To offer loans to increase the number of qualified nursing faculty.

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Vanderlaan, Ph.D., MPH, CNM, FNP

Funding Agency: ACNM Foundation

Amount Awarded: $1,500

Period: 07/01/2021 – 06/30/2022

Goals: To examine the effect of midwives on population level measures of maternal health by identifying associations between the density of midwives in a primary care service area (midwives per 1,000 births) and standardized maternal health outcomes.

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Active Studies

Below, explore the School of Nursing's active studies.

Title: Exploring Gen Z Nursing Students’ Experience and Emotional Processing in Simulation: A Grounded Theory Study (IRB: 1749692-3)

Investigator: Wendy Matthew, RN, MSN, CHSE

Goal: The purpose of this study is to explore how Gen Z nursing students experience and process emotions in simulation.

Participation Details:

  • Participants must be an undergraduate pre-licensure student in the baccalaureate nursing program at UNLV, be Gen Z (born between 1997-2003), and have participated in at least one simulation.
  • Volunteers will complete the following: 1) an online questionnaire, 2) a 1-hour interview via Zoom, and 3) a 30-minute follow up interview via Zoom.
  • In the interview, you will be asked about your experiences in simulation, specifically with emotions and how you managed your emotions during the learning event.
  • You will receive a monetary compensation token of appreciation for participating in the study.

Additional Details from the Investigator: If you are interested in taking part of this study, we will first ask you for your email address and the purpose of asking for your email address is for correspondence purposes only (i.e., sending you online forms via email and scheduling your interviews via email). Prior to participation, you will be given information about the study; then, an informed consent to participate in the study will be obtained. You will complete the informed consent online through a link that we will provide to you via email. You will also complete an online questionnaire followed by an online interview with me. The online questionnaire will consist of a brief demographic survey and a post-simulation reflection questionnaire (i.e., six questions asking you to reflect on your simulation experience). You will complete the online questionnaires after you attended any simulation activity in your school this semester. We will also provide you the link to complete these online questionnaires via email. The interview, which will be scheduled after you complete the online questionnaire, will last about 1 hour. In the interview, you will be asked questions about your experience with emotions in simulation and how you have managed those emotions. Following completion of all interviews, you will be invited to take part in a follow-up interview to discuss the findings of the data analysis and to verify if the findings are consistent with your experience. This follow-up interview may last for 30 minutes. The interview will take place online through Zoom. With your permission, the interview will be audio-visually recorded so that I may be able to pay careful attention to what you are saying.

During the interview, it is possible that you may experience psychological discomfort and may not want to continue our interview. To the best of our knowledge, there is minimal risk associated with participating in this study. If you should require supplementary emotional support after the interview, I can provide you a list of counseling and other support services both offered by the university and other community agencies. On the other hand, having a chance to talk about important experiences may be helpful for you and it is possible that by talking about your experiences, you will begin to understand them in new or different ways. Most likely, the issues we will talk about are ones you have thought about before, but may not have had an opportunity to talk about with others.

Participation in this study is voluntary. You are free to stop the interview at any time, and for any reason. You do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to answer. If you change your mind and decide that you do not want to take part in this research, you may do this at any time. Your participation or non-participation will have no academic consequence on any of your course or your program. Anything you tell me will be strictly confidential and no real names will be used in reports of the study. All information that you provide about yourself will be kept in a password protected computer. After the transcription of the data is complete, all identifying information will be removed. You will also be given a choice of a pseudonym you would like to have. A summary of what we have learned from this research will be given to you when the study is over. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Dr. Andrew Reyes my research supervisor, or me. We can be reached at either of the addresses/phone numbers listed.

For questions regarding the rights of research subjects, any complaints or comments regarding the manner in which the study is being conducted, contact the UNLV Office of Research Integrity, Human Subjects at 702-895-2794, toll free at 888-581-2794 or via email at IRB@unlv.edu.

Contact Information:

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