Predicting Who’ll Show Up: Research on Nurses’ Intentions to Work during a Public Health Crisis

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Figure 1. Percentage of respondents indicating willingness to work during a flu pandemic according to self-reported perception of flu threat

During disasters and emergency situations, the public expects health care workers to show up and do their jobs. But this isn’t a given—there are always some who are either unable or unwilling to do so. So far, most of the research in this area has used convenience samples, hypothetical situations, or untested survey instruments, and very little has focused solely on nurses.

To learn more, Sharon Dezzani Martin and colleagues decided to explore further. This month’s original research CE, “Predictors of Nurses’ Intentions to Work During the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic,” reports on their findings. Here’s the abstract, which offers a brief overview.

Objective: This study examined potential predictors of nurses’ intentions to work during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic.
Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 1,200 nurses chosen from all RNs and LPNs registered with the Maine State Board of Nursing during the second wave of the flu pandemic.
Results: Of the 735 respondents, […]

2017-07-27T14:49:21-04:00December 16th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Family Pet Visitation: A Nurse-Led Project at One Illinois Hospital

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We hear a lot about therapy dogs that are specially trained to visit patients in the hospital. But I for one would want to see not just any dog but my own dog, if I were gravely ill and in the hospital. I know I’m not alone, and some nurses set out to determine the pros and cons of making pet visits happen for some patients in their hospital. What safety concerns might there be? According to the current available research, what benefits might patients experience? What protocols would be necessary if it were to happen?

Nurses from Memorial Hospital in Belleville, Illinois, set out to answer these questions and bring such a program to life. They give the details in “Family Pet Visitation,” a feature article in the December issue of AJN (free for a month), along with some moving photos of patients and their pets. Here’s a quote from the start:

[…]

2016-11-21T13:05:55-05:00December 4th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement|1 Comment
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AJN’s December Issue: Working During a Pandemic, HIV Foot Care, Healing Pet Visits, a Focus on Narrative

AJN1213.Cover.OnlineAJN’s December issue is now available on our Web site, just in time for some holiday reading. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Working during a pandemic. Flu season is in swing, but how do nurses feel about working during a flu pandemic? Researchers investigating terrorism and catastrophic events found that up to 96% of health care workers reported being unable or unwilling to work during some emergencies, with some infectious diseases associated with the highest rates of unwillingness. “Predictors of Nurses’ Intentions to Work During the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic,” December’s original research CE, suggests that providing adequate resources during an emergency (such as personal protective equipment) will not only ensure the safety of patients, nurses, and nurses’ families, but may also increase nurses’ willingness to work in times of crisis. Earn 2.5 CE credits by reading this article and taking the test that follows. If you’re reading AJN on your iPad, you can listen to a podcast interview with the author by clicking on the podcast icon on the first page of the article. The podcast is also available on our Web site.

HIV foot care. Peripheral neuropathy, which causes debilitating symptoms such as burning pain and sensation loss in the foot, continues to be prevalent in people with HIV, but is often overlooked. “HIV Peripheral Neuropathy and Foot Care Management” […]

2016-11-21T13:05:57-05:00November 27th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Scrubs on the Street: Big Concern?

This colorized 2005 scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted numerous clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly referred to by the acronym, MRSA; Magnified 2390x. CDC/via Wikimedia Commons This colorized 2005 scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted numerous clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly referred to by the acronym, MRSA; Magnified 2390x. CDC/via Wikimedia Commons

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I came across this article on the Reporting on Health blog from the Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. It discusses one woman’s campaign to get hospital health care providers to stop wearing scrubs outside of the hospital. She wants people to photograph the ‘offenders’ and send the photos to hospital administrators. She’s concerned that the clothing will pick up infection-causing bacteria in the community and spread infection to weak, immunocompromised patients.

Wearing uniforms outside of the clinical setting has been debated on and off for years. Here’s an excerpt from an editorial comment that appeared in the March 1906 issue of AJN (you can read the full article for free as a subscriber):

AJNArchiveExcerptNursesonStreet

So […]

2016-11-21T13:05:59-05:00November 20th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|6 Comments
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A Report from the ANA Safe Staffing Conference

Katheren Koehn, MA, RN, AJN editorial board member and executive director of MNORN (Minnesota Organization of Registered Nurses), reports from last week’s ANA conference on staffing held in Washington, DC.

staffiing Click image for source page at ANA staffing site.

The ANA Safe Staffing Conference ended on Saturday. There were almost 700 registered nurses from all over the country in attendance—nurses in management, direct care, and leadership—all gathered to try to discover new strategies for how to solve the most challenging issue in nursing: safe staffing.

Not a new issue. This has long been the most challenging issue for nursing. Teresa Stone, editor of Poems from the Heart of Nursing: Selected Poems from the American Journal of Nursing, told me that, as she was searching the archives of 113 years of AJN issues for her book, she found that staffing issues were a frequent theme. Today, as the work of nurses has become more complex, the need to create sustainable solutions to ensuring appropriate staffing is our most critical issue—hence the ANA Staffing Conference.

The body of evidence supporting the idea that appropriate nurse staffing makes a difference in saving patients’ lives has grown exponentially in the past 20 years. This evidence—paired with the new federal financial incentives for hospitals to improve patient outcomes and experiences—makes it seem inevitable that increasing nurse staffing would be the […]

2016-11-21T13:06:06-05:00November 11th, 2013|career, health care policy, nursing perspective, nursing research, safe staffing|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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