About Betsy Todd, MPH, RN

Former clinical editor, American Journal of Nursing (AJN), and nurse epidemiologist

How to Create a Poster that Attracts an Audience: New Research Yields Clues

Have you ever designed a poster to present at a nursing conference?

If so, how did you know what to do?

Today, digital design and printing capabilities present many options for professional-looking posters. But how can you increase the chances that nurses at a conference will actually read what you’ve gone to so much trouble to share?

In this month’s AJN, Sandra Siedlecki, PhD, RN, CNS, senior nurse scientist at the Cleveland Clinic, discusses the attributes of a good poster in an original research article: “How to Create a Poster That Attracts an Audience.”

Past articles in the nursing literature have described how to create a “winning poster,” but Siedlecki could find no actual evidence-based recommendations about poster design. So she set out to learn what attracts nurses to specific posters by surveying attendees at a nursing conference.

What captures the attention of conference attendees?

In addition to asking nurses to rate the importance of various poster design elements on a scale of zero to 10, Siedlecki also asked attendees these open-ended questions:

2017-03-13T10:13:59-04:00March 10th, 2017|Nursing, nursing research|0 Comments
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The Role of Prevention and Standardized Care in Improving CKD Outcomes

Slowing Chronic Kidney Disease Progression

Most nurses have worked with patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Their condition may have been related to diabetes, high blood pressure, an acute infection, or other assaults on the kidney. I’ve tended to see a diagnosis of CKD as the beginning of an inevitable decline. Certainly, “prevention” didn’t seem a relevant concept at this point; my role was to assess and monitor, teach and support, and hope for the best.

Fig. 1. The Nephron. Blood flows into the nephron through the glomerulus. Filtrate from the glomerulus flows into Bowman’s capsule, then through the proximal tubule, the loop of Henle, and the distal tubule, a series of tubules that modifies the filtrate primarily by reabsorbing water […]

2017-03-14T12:02:17-04:00February 15th, 2017|Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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School Recess as a Matter of Public Health

A friend who teaches first grade finds her principal’s recess policy maddening. The children are allowed almost no recess, and some teachers have resorted to “sneaking” their classes outside when the principal is off-site. “The children have no rights,” my friend says. She adds that when they haven’t been able to run and play, “teaching is a waste” because the kids can’t focus.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends a minimum of 60 minutes of daily physical activity for children and adolescents, and the American Academy of Pediatrics describes recess as “crucial.” Yet many schools continue to prioritize academics over physical health. In this month’s AJN Reports, author Carol Potera explores the connection between the decline in physical activity in schools and the increase in childhood obesity and describes the ways in which some schools are trying to reverse these trends. […]

2017-01-24T15:55:08-05:00January 25th, 2017|Nursing, Public health|3 Comments
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Metabolic Syndrome: Lifestyle Factors and Prevention

Metabolic syndrome: one-third of U.S. adults.

Cycling Mother and Daughter, Netherlands/via Wikimedia CommonsConversations about health—whether between neighbors or between clinicians and patients—often revolve around weight problems, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. Taken together, these are the cardiovascular risk factors referred to as metabolic syndrome.

In the United States, more than one-third of all adults have metabolic syndrome. This is an astonishing figure, especially because these risk factors can be modified.

What keeps some who are obese or overweight ‘metabolically healthy’?

In recent years, researchers have learned that some people who are overweight or obese do not demonstrate the other risk factors that are part of metabolic syndrome, and therefore these people have a lower-than-expected risk of cardiovascular disease. In a study reported in this month’s AJN (“Examining the Links Between Lifestyle Factors and Metabolic Syndrome“), a group of Taiwanese nurse researchers set out to learn whether there might be lifestyle factors that keep this subgroup of people “metabolically healthy,” protecting them from the other cardiovascular risk factors that usually come with extra weight.

Lifestyle factors associated with prevention.

Dr. Shu-Hung Chang and colleagues performed community-based physical exams on more than 700 people in northern Taiwan and questioned them about lifestyle factors including smoking, drinking, exercise, and the foods they ate. The […]

2017-07-27T11:53:43-04:00December 5th, 2016|nursing research, personal health practices|1 Comment
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Helping New Nurses Find Their Way: The Art of Saying Yes

A Preceptor’s Example

Photo by Ed Eckstein Photo by Ed Eckstein

AJN’s Transition to Practice column is designed to help new nurses in their first year at the bedside. In this month’s column, “The Art of Saying Yes,” Amanda Anderson explains how as a new nurse she learned the benefits (to herself and her patients) of going the extra mile at work. She describes the surprising personal and professional benefits that come from “the times you choose to say yes when you might just as easily have deferred.”

Anderson paints a vivid picture of her first days on the job as a nurse: The fear of making mistakes, the feeling of being a useless novice, the shame of not always being able to keep up with seasoned staff. She was fortunate, though, to have an expert mentor in those early days. Her preceptor was an experienced nurse who modeled the art of saying yes—an art that might be described as a willingness to leap in to help when not required to do so: to take on a housekeeping task, for example, or pitch in unasked to help another nurse whose day is spinning out of control.

“There is no term […]

2016-11-21T13:00:48-05:00November 18th, 2016|career, Nursing|3 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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