Nursing Archives - Page 211 of 408

Breathing Training May Ease Depression in Dialysis Patients: Study Findings

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

It’s estimated that depression afflicts between 25% and 50% of people who have chronic kidney disease. And depression has been associated with numerous adverse outcomes in this population, including poor sleep, reduced quality of life, and higher rates of hospitalization and death. Researchers Siou-Hung Tsai and colleagues wanted to know whether teaching patients a basic relaxation technique—deep, slow breathing—could alleviate depressive symptoms.

To learn more, they developed a four-week intervention and conducted a trial. The intervention included instruction by a dialysis nurse trained in deep breathing techniques, additional audio device–guided instruction, and guided exercises. The authors report on their findings in this month’s CE–Original Research feature, “The Efficacy of a Nurse-Led Breathing Training Program in Reducing Depressive Symptoms in Patients on Hemodialysis.” Here’s a brief summary.

Objectives: The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the efficacy of a nurse-led, in-center breathing training program in reducing depressive symptoms and improving sleep quality and health-related quality of life in patients on maintenance hemodialysis.
Methods: Fifty-seven patients on hemodialysis were randomly assigned either to an eight-session breathing training group or to a control group. The Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the Medical Outcome Studies 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) were used to assess self-reported depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life, respectively.
Results: The intervention group exhibited significantly greater decreases in BDI-II scores than did the control group. No significant differences in PSQI change scores were observed between […]

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Guest Author2017-07-27T14:41:22-04:00April 7th, 2015|nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment

Have You Fallen Prey to a Predatory Publisher?

Predatory publishers promise prompt, easy publication. The hidden charges come later, as well as the realization that the journal has no real standing or quality control. Not only is this bad for potential authors, it’s bad for knowledge, flooding the market with inferior information made to superficially resemble the information you need.

Imagine this scenario: You receive an email from a seemingly respectable journal inviting you to submit a paper for publication. You’ve wanted to publish on this topic for some time, and this journal promises you a quick review and publication within a few months. As a new author, you are thrilled . . . that is, until you get charged an outrageous processing fee upon turning the article in. You’ve just fallen victim to a predatory publisher.

Unfortunately, this scenario is becoming all too common. These journals are often difficult to spot, with their professional-looking Web sites and names that sound legitimate, if a little vague. In fact, just recently at AJN, we stumbled across a Web site featuring a journal that looked a lot like ours and had a very similar name. (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.)

In our April issue, editor-in-chief Shawn […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:43-05:00April 6th, 2015|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

Morgellons: Whatever the Cause, the Suffering Is Real

Image, magnified 60 times, depicts fiber-embedded skin removed from a facial lesion of a 3-year-old boy who the Morgellons Research Foundation says has Morgellons. Image, provided by Morgellons Research Foundation to AJN in 2008, described as depicting fiber-embedded skin removed from facial lesion of 3-year-old boy with Morgellons (magnified 60x).

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

As you may have read, Joni Mitchell was recently found unconscious in her home and is now in the hospital. She has attributed her health issues to a syndrome called Morgellons—a condition in which sufferers experience what they describe as fibers emerging from their skin, along with intense itching, sores that won’t heal, and a host of nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue and concentration problems.

Whether it’s a clinically verifiable illness or, as some have argued, a manifestation of a psychological condition known as “delusional parasitosis,” Morgellons is plenty real to those who experience it.

We covered this controversial illness several years back in an article called “AKA ‘Morgellons.’” I interviewed two nurses and several others about their experiences. One of the nurses (see this sidebar) was convinced she had caught the condition from a patient. I also spoke with Michele Pearson, MD, the lead investigator of a then-pending […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:02:44-05:00April 2nd, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment

Two Sons, Similar injuries—Two Very Different Experiences of Pain

Vincent-2015-AJN_The_American_Journal_of_Nursing We are often amazed by the richness of the archives here at AJN. In the April issue, we reprint an essay originally published in the February 2002 issue. “Morphine. Now.” by Peggy Vincent, touches on topics as relevant today as ever: inadequate pain relief and the costs to patients of certain nursing scope-of-practice limitations.

It’s also a story, written by a nurse, of encountering very different attitudes to human suffering in two different health care institutions after injuries sustained by her own children. There may or may not be clinical details or matters of protocol that don’t accord with every reader’s current clinical experiences, but the human interactions are as familiar as ever. Here’s a brief excerpt: […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:02:45-05:00April 1st, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|0 Comments

More Than Competencies and Checklists: The Shadow Side of Nurse Orientation

‘Developing beneficial working relationships is part of a successful nursing orientation. If you’re lucky, your preceptor is explaining the nuances.’

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, is an oncology nurse navigator and writes a monthly post for this blog. The illustration below is hers.

Paradisi_Illustration_Shadow I led the first patient I had contact with as a nurse navigator to the hospital restrooms—this was her most pressing concern at the time. Building on this success, I now have a small number of patients to navigate through their cancer journeys, under advisement of my preceptors.

During this early stage, I’ve become aware that, running parallel to my orientation, a shadow orientation is also occurring.

This umbral orientation doesn’t come, like its more tangible counterpart, with a sheath of paperwork with competencies to perform or checklists to mark off. But it’s just as real. Awareness of shadow orientation develops on an intuitive level. While this experience is difficult to describe in words, it feels familiar.

Shadow orientations happen to everyone. Nearly 30 years and several nursing jobs since that first one, I’m acutely aware of the importance of a good first impression. Fortunately, this particular orientation of mine is going smoothly, but here are some observations based on past experiences.

Shadow orientation is present when you meet a staff member who makes it known this is her desk, her chair, her phone—maybe not in words, but with a look and a click […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:02:45-05:00March 30th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|4 Comments