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Undergraduate Spotlight: Olivia Green

November 4, 2019

Undergraduate Spotlight: Olivia Green

Olivia Green

Olivia Green is a Psychology undergraduate student making significant strides in the research community. A manuscript based on her thesis, titled "The Perceived Credibility of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: A Survey of Undergraduate and Graduate Students", has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and is currently in press.

Green started brainstorming ideas for her thesis during the summer of 2018 and began collaborating with her mentor/faculty advisor, Dr. Patrick Carroll. Towards the end of that summer, she was able to develop a strong foundation for the study and the measures she would utilize during her survey. Data collection ensued in the fall, and data analyzation as well as writing the study occured up until spring of 2019. Green was able to successfully defend her thesis at the end of spring semester.

Her study set out to survey attitudes and beliefs towards Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) among undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes and graduate students in occupational therapy, school psychology, clinical psychology, and counseling education at The Ohio State University. She and Dr. Carroll used three different measures within their survey to assess students' attitudes and beliefs including the CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ), a scale they developed to assess how credible students believed a handful of therapies to be, and another scale that they developed to assess how frequently students used these therapies. Participants were asked to rate 11 therapies based on how credible they believed them to be, if they had ever used them, and how often did they use meditation, massage, spirituality/religion, herbs/vitamins, chriopractic medicine, acupuncture, hypnosis, therapeutic touch, biofeedback, aromatherapy/essential oils, and yoga. 

Green presented her findings at the Ohio State Undergraduate Research Festival in spring 2019. In addition, she traveled to Chicago this August to present her findings at the American Psychological Association's (APA) annual convention.