Intercollegiate College of Nursing
Linda Eddy
Marriage: Perception, Reality, and Meaningful Intervention for Families of Children with Special Needs
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Dr. Linda Eddy’s clinical research focuses on the impact families sustain in caring for children with special needs, specifically as it relates to marital quality. Dr. Eddy’s interest in this area arose, in part, as a result of caring for her own son who has cerebral palsy and mental retardation.
During years of caring for families with children of special needs in her practice as a pediatric nurse practitioner, Dr. Eddy found that many interventions designed with these families in mind were based more on anecdotal reports than on evidence. Well-meaning practitioners from many professional disciplines have sometimes given incomplete information or less than adequate support based on their own discomfort with what has happened in these families. Clinical interventions are then developed based on needs assessments from non-representative clinical samples of parents of children with special needs. These clinical samples often indicate high levels of family disruption.
However, Dr. Eddy found no differences between families of children with special needs and families of well children regarding marital quality or perceived marital stability using a large, nationally representative sample (1999). It is important, particularly in this era of sparse dollars for family support, that interventions are targeted at real rather than perceived needs. Continuing this avenue of exploration, with particular attention focused on identifying and developing culturally competent interdisciplinary interventions, is the current focus of Dr. Eddy’s research.
Dr. Eddy has published and presented widely on program and curriculum evaluation, and is involved in nursing education training grants at Washington State University’s Intercollegiate College of Nursing and at Oregon Health and Science University.
Her chosen area of clinical research compliments her expertise in evaluation research methodologies.
Contact Information
Linda Eddy, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Intercollegiate College of Nursing
Washington State University Vancouver
14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave.
Vancouver, WA 98686-9600
Telephone: 360-546-9788
E-Mail: eddy@vancouver.wsu.edu |
