June Issue Highlights: PPE Shortages, Opioid Use Disorder, More

“Nurses’ work has become powerfully visible.”—editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her June editorial, “Nurses: Courageous, Committed, and Fed Up”

The cover image of our June issue is a watercolor painting, Human, by Ohio artist Jim Leitz. Created in March, the painting is a tribute to the experiences of frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The June issue is now live, and features continuing coverage of COVID-19, plus many articles on other topics in nursing and health care. Here’s what’s new:

Original Research: The Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Cost-Related Medication Nonadherence in Older Adults: A Systematic Review

The authors conducted a comprehensive review of the literature to explore the connection between these two significant public health issues. The evidence suggests a correlation and points to the need for more effective interventions.

Opioid Use Disorder: Pathophysiology, Assessment, and Effective Interventions

A review of the development of opioid use disorder, available screening tools, medical treatments, and behavioral interventions that have demonstrated efficacy in reducing substance use.

Back to Basics: Abnormal Basic Metabolic Panel Findings: Implications for Nursing

In this article in a new series designed to improve acute care nurses’ understanding of laboratory abnormalities, the author discusses important values in the basic metabolic panel, including the electrolytes potassium and chloride as […]

2020-05-26T09:23:33-04:00May 26th, 2020|Nursing|0 Comments
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November Issue: Chronic Pain and Opioids, CVDs in Pregnancy, Preventing Patient Self-Harm, More

“[S]eeing this patient, his return, his presence, his enduring love, was a gift. Because some days in health care, you don’t really know what hope you are fighting for or for whom.”—Hui-Wen (Alina) Sato, author of the November Reflections column, “Beholding the Returning Light”

The November issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new:

CE: Implementing Guidelines for Treating Chronic Pain with Prescription Opioids

An overview of five tools outlined in the CDC’s 2016 opioid safety guideline—prescription opioid treatment agreements, urine drug screening, prescription drug monitoring program databases, calculation of morphine milligram equivalents, and naloxone kits—and their relevance to primary care nurses.

CE: Gestational Hypertension, Preeclampsia, and Peripartum Cardiomyopathy: A Clinical Review

The authors discuss three of the most common pregnancy-specific cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors, prevention, assessment, and management.
[…]

2019-10-28T10:00:42-04:00October 28th, 2019|Nursing|0 Comments
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Bringing the Faces of Addiction—and Recovery—to Schools

Nancy Labov, RN, CADC. Photos courtesy of Nancy Labov.

A nurse speaks from experience.

In nursing school, Nancy Labov felt a kinship with the patients she encountered during a rotation on a rehabilitation unit. She realized that she wanted to spend her career caring for patients like them. Their struggles with addiction struck a chord: alcoholism ran in her family, and she, too, had a substance abuse problem, though she was in denial about it at the time.

In her mid-20s, Labov got sober; she has maintained her sobriety ever since. She’s also persisted in her mission to help people recover from addiction. As an RN and a certified alcohol and drug counselor, she has spent the past three decades working on rehab and detox units across the country.

Labov is also the founder of Alumni in Recovery (AIR)—a nonprofit through which young adults in recovery give talks at schools in the communities they grew up in. As she discusses in the July Profile in AJN, “Helping Students See the Realities of Addiction and Recovery,” the New Jersey-based volunteer organization fights stigma by opening a dialogue about addiction and showing teens a young, local, and relatable face of recovery.

A peer-to-peer approach is key.

“How do we […]

2019-07-11T08:55:16-04:00July 11th, 2019|Nursing, nursing stories, Public health|2 Comments
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October Issue: Treating Hemorrhagic Shock, Pain Management and Opioid Use Disorder, Workplace Violence, More

“Violent behavior seems to be an . . . increasingly frequent occurrence in hospitals and nursing care facilities. More and more, such violence is the result of intentional harm.” —editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her October editorial

The October issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: The Use of Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta in Treating Hemorrhagic Shock from Severe Trauma

Efforts to prevent death from hemorrhagic shock have resulted in the emergence of a new tool—resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA), a less invasive option for controlling hemorrhage in noncompressible areas of the body. This article outlines REBOA, describes its evolution, and discusses various considerations, pitfalls, and nursing implications.

CE: Perspectives on Palliative Nursing: Acute Pain Management for People with Opioid Use Disorder

The authors of this article—one in a series on palliative care developed with the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association—discuss how to manage acute pain effectively in patients receiving medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, which incorporates methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone.

Original Research: Journalists’ Experiences with Using Nurses as Sources in Health News Stories

The authors of a 2018 replication of the 1997 […]

2018-09-28T10:05:14-04:00September 28th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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For One Nurse, the Heroin Crisis Hits Too Close to Home

Illustration by Gingermoth.

The abundance of cheap, potent street drugs like heroin and fentanyl continue to cause record overdose numbers. This ongoing crisis struck close to home for the nurse who’s the author of our August Reflections essay. When her nephew ended up in the hospital, she found herself, as a family member, “on the wrong side of” the situation:

“This happened to other people’s families, not mine. I was supposed to be reading the monitors and titrating the drips. I was supposed to be taking care of the patient.”

With the support of nurses.

The author, in her dual role as nurse and sister of the young man’s father, must at times walk a fine line between these roles. And so she’s grateful for the help of the nurses whose presence sees the author’s family through what can’t be seen through. They quietly minister to their patient and those most concerned with his fate. Their sensitivity and professionalism offer them a profound support. […]

2018-08-27T07:33:23-04:00August 27th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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