Attention to Patients’ Mobility: Low-Tech But Essential

A critical care nurse led a multidisciplinary team to explore the effects of a dedicated ‘mobility team’ on functional and other outcomes in ICU patients.

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

julie kertesz/ via flickr creative common julie kertesz/ via flickr creative common

It’s long been known that immobility leads to deconditioning. Various studies indicate that muscle strength drops by 3% to 11% with each day of bed rest. As most of us have witnessed firsthand in both patients and family members, it can take months to regain pre–bed rest levels of functioning. For some people, the strength and mobility needed for independence never return.

In this month’s issue, a community hospital critical care nurse led a multidisciplinary team to explore the effects of a dedicated “mobility team” on functional and other outcomes in ICU patients. In “Implementation of an Early Mobility Program in an ICU,” Danielle Fraser and colleagues share what they learned.

The mobility team consisted of a physical therapist, a critical care RN, and an ICU rehab aide. Respiratory therapists worked closely with the team. Patients assigned to the early mobility intervention could progress through four successive levels of movement, from passive range-of-motion exercises to full ambulation.

Compared with ICU patients who received routine care, the patients in the intervention group were more functionally independent at discharge. In addition, this […]

2016-11-21T13:01:41-05:00December 7th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement|0 Comments
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Message to Authors: Think. Check. Submit.

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Think. Check. Submit.

The above three words sum up the message of a new campaign to increase awareness among researchers and authors about predatory publishers—entities that take advantage of authors by unscrupulous practices that often leave the authors tied up in a contract and owing a large fee to publish in a journal that has little or no standing. (See my related editorial on predatory publishing in the April issue of AJN.)

Promising rapid publication, predatory journals lack peer review and fact-checking, often tout fake metrics, and may adopt names that are deceptively similar to those of established journals. Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, has been tracking predatory publishers since 2009 and maintains a list of them on his Web site, Scholarly Open Access.

The Think. Check. Submit. campaign describes itself as an “industry-wide initiative that provides a checklist of quality indicators that can help researchers identify if a journal is a trustworthy.” It’s a new campaign “produced with the support of a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing.” In brief, it asks authors to:

THINK about where they should publish their work. Are the journals they are considering reputable?

CHECK the list of questions designed to help determine if a journal is respectable […]

2016-11-21T13:01:57-05:00October 5th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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On Nursing Identity: What We Can Learn from African Nurses’ Oral Histories

 By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Port of Mauritius by Iqbal Osman, via Flickr Port of Mauritius by Iqbal Osman, via Flickr

“I have chosen this profession and nobody can take it away from me.”—Sophie Makwangwala, study participant

In the summer of 2009, at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Quadren­nial Congress in Durban, South Africa, a small group met to discuss collaborating on joint history projects. At that meeting, several African leaders of pro­fessional nursing associations reported that their expertise had long gone unrecognized. Seeking to have the stories of African nursing history told, they pro­posed interviews with other retired nurse leaders. Barbara Mann Wall, an American nurse researcher who was in the room that day, found herself intrigued.

The study. In keeping with Braun’s tenet that “indigenous research should be led, de­signed, controlled, and reported by indigenous peo­ple,” Wall first trained three of the African nurse leaders in the oral history method, aided by a grant from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Then the team embarked on the study reported on in this month’s original research CE, “ ‘I Am A Nurse’: Oral Histories of African Nurses.” Here’s an overview: […]

2017-07-27T14:39:53-04:00August 17th, 2015|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|2 Comments
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Editing a Journal: Not Bedside Nursing, But Still an Urgency to Get Things Right

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

‘Nurses practice based on what’s in the literature; we need editors who will draw lines and stand firm against publishing biased and inaccurate papers.’

Niklas Bildhauer/ Wikimedia Commons Niklas Bildhauer/ Wikimedia Commons

I recently returned from a meeting in Las Vegas, the land of lights and bells and six-story marquees—and heat (it hit 109 when I was there, but “a dry heat”). The long flight home gave me time to reflect on the meeting I’d attended (of editors of nursing journals) and on what I do.

When I began my nursing career, I always thought I would stay in the acute care setting. I found the fast pace of the ER challenging and never boring. When I moved into a clinical specialist position and then an administrative one, I could still get involved in challenging situations, from dealing with problems that occurred on clinical units or with staff to navigating the politics of hospital committees and community liaisons.

But time passes and paths twist and turn, and here I am the editor of AJN—and it’s the most challenging and professionally fulfilling job I’ve had.

The International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE for short) meets annually. It’s a loose networking group, mainly held together through a Web site, blog, and […]

2016-11-21T13:02:09-05:00August 14th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research|3 Comments
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AJN in August: Oral Histories of African Nurses, Opioid Abuse, Misplaced Enteral Tubes, More

AJN0815.Cover.OnlineOn this month’s cover, a community nurse practices health education with residents of a small fishing village in rural Uganda. Former AJN clinical managing editor Karen Roush took the photo in a small community center made of dried mud bricks, wood, and straw.

According to Roush, nurses wrote the lessons out on poster-sized sheets of white paper and tacked them to the mud wall as they addressed topics like personal hygiene, sanitation, food safety, communication, and prevention of infectious diseases. The reality of nursing in Africa is explored this month in “‘I Am a Nurse’: Oral Histories of African Nurses,” original research that shares African nurse leaders’ stories so we may better understand nursing from their perspective.

Some other articles of note in the August issue:

CE feature: A major source of diverted opioid prescription medications is from friends and family members with legitimate prescriptions.  “Nurses’ Role in Preventing Prescription Opioid Diversion” describes three potential interventions in which nurses play a critical role to help prevent opioid diversion.

From our Safety Monitor column: More than 1.2 million enteral feeding tubes are placed annually in the United States. While the practice is usually safe, serious complications can occur. “Misplacements of Enteral Feeding Tubes Increase After Hospitals Switch Brands,” a report from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, reviews cases of misplaced tubes and offers guidance for how nurses […]

2016-11-21T13:02:11-05:00August 3rd, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement|0 Comments
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