The March issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles we’d like to bring to your attention.

CE Feature: Improving Outcomes for Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: Part 2

The second installment of this two-part article addresses chronic kidney disease complications and treatment of kidney failure. Part 1, which appeared last month, offered an overview of the disease, describing identification and etiology, and discussed ways to slow disease progression.

CE Feature: Defining and Understanding Pilot and Other Feasibility Studies

Nurses are becoming increasingly involved in conducting clinical research in which feasibility studies are often the first steps. This article provides an overview of feasibility studies, including pilot studies, and explains the type of preliminary data they seek to provide in order to make larger, future studies more efficient and successful.

Original Research: How to Create a Poster That Attracts an Audience

Nurses developing a poster presentation for the first time who look for guidance in the literature will find many articles offering recommendations on format and style, but these are based on opinion rather than evidence. This study identifies the design principles and content-specific attributes of a poster that improve the chance that attendees at a nursing conference will read it.

Writing for Publication, Step by Step: Becoming a Published Writer

This first article in a new series designed to help nurses sharpen their writing skills offers suggestions for developing good writing habits and tips on getting started.

Special Supplement: Multimodal Analgesia for Acute Pain: An Evidence-Based Approach

This online supplement examines and summarizes the state of the science on acute pain management, discussing the incidence of acute pain, its physiology and pathophysiology, multimodal pain treatments, and recommendations from evidence-based guidelines, expert consensus reports, and position statements from professional nursing organizations.

There’s much more in our March issue, including an In the Community report on a project in which nurses followed a plant-based diet for 21 days, and a What I’m Reading discussion by noted author Theresa Brown of a Florence Nightingale biography. Click here to browse the table of contents and explore the issue on our Web site.

A note on the cover:

On this month’s cover, Nam Ngo, RN, a volunteer with the American Red Cross, assists victims of Hurricane Matthew at a shelter in Fair Bluff, North Carolina. Ngo was one of thousands of Red Cross volunteers who traveled to the East Coast in response to the October 2016 disaster. We chose this photo for the cover to celebrate Red Cross Month—and also to acknowledge the vital role in the organization that nurses, most of whom are volunteers, play. Currently, more than 15,000 nurses are involved with the Red Cross in varied capacities. Some, like Ngo, help provide disaster services (in 2016, the American Red Cross provided more than 144,000 health and mental health consultations to disaster victims around the country); others teach or take on leadership roles, such as managing blood drives. Information about volunteer opportunities for nurses and nursing students can be found here.