well-being Archives - Off the Charts

Assessing Sleep Health: And Other Recommended Reading from AJN’s July Issue

The July issue of AJN is now live.

This month’s CE article, “Assessing and Promoting Sleep Health: A Brief Guide for Nurses,” outlines foundational information on sleep; general sleep health assessment; symptoms, risk factors, and screening measures related to common sleep disorders; and practical strategies nurses can use to promote healthy sleep.

“It’s important that RNs have effective ways to access and use integrative health programs and resources that are available to them. But this can be especially difficult for nurses who work at night,” write Withall and colleagues in “An Integrative Health Educational Intervention for RNs Working at Night: A Pilot Study.” This study aimed to assess whether an asynchronous integrative health educational intervention, tailored for night-shift nurses, was useful to them. (Open access)

Our July AJN Reports, “Maternal Health: ‘A Crisis Within a Crisis,’” explores how recent federal funding cuts are threatening efforts to improve care and disparities.

In “Utilization of Pressure Injury Prevention Interventions in Acute Care Hospitals,” the authors examine the relationship between nurses’ adherence to pressure injury prevention practices and hospital-acquired pressure injury development. (Open access)

As noted by Otis and colleagues in this month’s Program Evaluation, “The trauma that nurses experience when […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2025-06-26T11:21:16-04:00June 26th, 2025|Nursing|0 Comments

AJN August Issue: Studying Nurses’ Well-Being and Resilience During the Pandemic, Much More

“If there is any group that needs a day at the beach, it’s nurses.”—editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her August editorial, “Nursing Is No Day at the Beach”

The August issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

Original Research: Well-Being and Resilience Among Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

The authors of this study surveyed health care staff (58% nurses) in June and July 2020 to identify modifiable environmental factors in the workplace that affect well-being and resilience.

CE: Monitoring Adult Patients for Intolerance to Gastric Tube Feedings

An overview of recent guidelines and best practices for the care of enterally fed adults.

AJN Reports: School Nursing During a Pandemic

How COVID-19 introduced new challenges for school nurses—and what may lie ahead this fall.
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Diane Szulecki, editor2021-07-26T08:41:44-04:00July 26th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments

Supporting Systems to Address Clinician Burnout

National Academy of Medicine calls for action to address a crisis among clinicians.

As a nurse and researcher who has worked in the area of clinician burnout for many years, I was pleased to see attention to this issue by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in a recent consensus study report, Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being.

Burnout, a syndrome of “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment” (Maslach et al. 2001. Job Burnout. Annu Rev Psychol. 52: 397-422), has far-reaching and troubling consequences for health care clinicians. The problem has grown to crisis levels: estimates indicate that 35%-45% of the nearly 4 million nurses in the U.S. are experiencing symptoms of burnout, and up to 54% of our physician colleagues experience it as well.

A ‘chronic imbalance’ of job demands with available resources.

Prominent among the factors contributing to burnout are the systemic patterns that erode professional fulfillment and well-being, many of which are beyond the control of individual clinicians. Burnout represents a chronic imbalance of job demands with resources needed to meet them.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), of which NAM is a part, convened a committee to examine the scientific evidence towards understanding the scope and consequences of burnout on the health […]

Guest Author2019-11-04T09:34:15-05:00November 4th, 2019|Nursing|0 Comments

Feeling Just Beachy

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I wrote a post here about the feeling of well-being—what it is, how it’s measured, and whether or not nurses often experience it. I guess writing the post struck a chord with me. I sometimes (often) feel overwhelmed with responsibilities at work and home and wish there was more time for fun, rejuvenating activities, and relaxing with friends. With this in mind, I decided to accept an invitation from friends to come for a visit.

My husband and I took a leisurely two-hour drive on Saturday down to see old friends at their new home on a New Jersey barrier island, one block from the ocean. Although it was a very cold day, the sun was shining in a bright, blue, cloudless sky. We decided to brave the wind and bundled up and headed out for a walk on the beach.

The air had that salty-sun smell and the wind was blowing enough to make the water choppy and full of whitecaps—it was gorgeous and exhilarating, and we tramped about for an hour. Later, we headed out again, this time to wander around the point at the south end of the island, where migratory birds and turtle nests were protected. Nothing like an ocean wind to clear your head!

A good meal, some catch-up conversations and laughs—it was a fabulous day. At times, I could still hear that nagging part of my brain saying, “What about those e-mails you need to get out?” and “You have to […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:13:40-05:00March 28th, 2011|nursing perspective|2 Comments

Are You a Well Being?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

A tweet from the UK’s Nursing Times recently caught my eye. It was directing Twitter followers to a post on its Web site, asking what “well-being” meant to them. The post discusses the work life vs. home life seesaw and whether readers’ chosen careers leave them time to enjoy other aspects of life. There’s actually a national well-being debate in the UK, where the Office for National Statistics is seeking public input in developing new measures of national well-being.

We measure well-being here in the U.S. too, with the CDC’s measures of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) index. While noting that “there is no consensus around a general definition of well-being,” the CDC sketches the concept of well-being in the following way:

“. . . at minimum, well-being includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment, happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment and positive functioning. In simple terms, well-being can be described as judging life positively and feeling good. . . . physical well-being (e.g., feeling very healthy and full of energy) is also viewed as critical to overall well-being.”

Most people I know say they’re working harder than they ever did before. I see single parents and don’t know how they work full-time, deal with childrens’ schedules and needs, and make time for themselves. (I guess mostly they don’t—especially the part about making time for […]