Abstract

Research has been conducted documenting the occurrence of biological rhythms in all aspects of life. Researchers have shown that an individual's time preference for morningness or eveningness parallels some biological rhythms. Others have shown that biological rhythms are stable across the life span. Preliminary studies have been conducted on adult developmental stages. These studies have shown that adults, like children, travel through distinct stages. This study arose when many women reported being an evening type when they were young adults, but changed to being a morning type when they had children. This study was designed to investigate whether a woman's time preference is dependent upon adult developmental stage and therefore a means to adapt to their changing responsibilities. This study recruited 200 women, between the ages of 40 to 60 years. All subjects bore primary child rearing responsibilities for at least one child. Subjects completed A Self-Assessment Questionnaire To Determine Morningness-Eveningness In Human Circadian Rhythms for three periods in their lives; when they had finished school but did not have children, when they had pre-school children, and the present. For each time period, subjects completed the questionnaire to document their time preference. It was hypothesized that an individual's time preference is not an inherent biological rhythm, but rather is an aspect of their developmental stage. It was specifically hypothesized that subjects would be most morning while raising pre-school children. This hypothesis was not fully supported. Questionnaire scores for the morning type sub-sample were linear at all time points. This indicates that for this sub-sample, adult developmental stage did not influence time preference. For all other subjects there was a significant increase in scores (more morningness) from the prechildren to children questionnaire. This data partially supports the original hypothesis, indicating that adult development does influence time preference. The second hypothesis stated that evening types would show greater variance in questionnaire scores than the morning types. This hypothesis was supported. Nurses and other health professionals can use this information to further explore the relationship between time preference and the effectiveness of time adjusted therapeutic regimens.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 8816829; ProQuest document ID: 303675219. The author still retains copyright. In all cases, this material is the best available copy, however there may be indistinct, broken or small print on several pages.

Karen E. Forbes

Author Details

Karen E. Forbes, PhD, RN, CDE, FNP-BC, BC-ADM

Sigma Membership

Delta Pi

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Biological Rhythms, Developmental Life Stages, Women's Life Stages

Advisors

Woog, Pierre

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Adelphi University

Degree Year

1988

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2019-05-31

Full Text of Presentation

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