What’s Enough? Why It’s Essential for Nurses to Assess Adolescent Sleep

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Illustration © Anne Horst / www.i2iart.com

In her poem “Sleep in the Mohave Desert,” Sylvia Plath wrote about not sleeping, feeling comfortless, tormented by the “heat-cracked crickets . . . [that] fiddle the short night away” in “the blue hour before sunup.” Though Plath was writing as an adult, sleeplessness and other sleep difficulties have troubled humans of all ages for centuries. Until recently, we could only guess at the health consequences. Now there is mounting evidence that inadequate or insufficient sleep has many adverse effects. Adolescents appear to be particularly vulnerable—and it’s not simply because they’re rebelling against bedtime. In this month’s CE, “Assessing Sleep in Adolescents Through a Better Understanding of Sleep Physiology,” authors Nancy George and Jean Davis offer an in-depth look.

Overview: Adolescents need about nine hours of sleep per night, yet most teens get far less. Inadequate sleep has consequences not only for academic performance but also for mental and physical health; it has been linked to lowered resilience and an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. It’s imperative that assessment of sleep become a routine part of adolescent health care. An understanding of sleep physiology is essential to helping nurses better assess and manage sleep deprivation in this population. Sleep assessment involves evaluating the three main aspects of sleep: amount, quality, and architecture. The authors provide an overview of sleep physiology, describe sleep changes that occur during adolescence, […]

2017-07-27T14:51:02-04:00June 7th, 2013|Nursing|1 Comment
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The ACA and Me: A Dispatch From the Trenches

Argonauta: The Beach at My Back/ oil stick on paper, 2010 by Julianna Paradisi Argonauta: The Beach at My Back/ oil stick on paper, 2010 by Julianna Paradisi

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

 “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.”—Jane Wagner

By 2014, up to 30 million Americans will have gained access to health care insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a nurse human being, I support increased access to health care. However, it is naive to believe it can be accomplished without sacrifice.

My job is a casualty of the ACA.

But let’s backtrack:

It’s more accurate (but less dramatic) to say that our country’s need of better health care delivery significantly affects my job. Most hospital nurses are familiar with Medicare tying reimbursement to patient outcomes. Further, built into the ACA is a requirement that hospitals expecting Medicare reimbursement form accountable care organizations (ACOs):

Under the proposed rule, an ACO refers to a group of providers and suppliers of services (e.g., hospitals, physicians, and others involved in patient care) that will work together to coordinate care for the patients they serve […]

2016-11-21T13:07:22-05:00June 5th, 2013|nursing perspective|6 Comments
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At Least Once in Every Nursing Career: Final ICN Congress Recap

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

from Great Ocean Road in Australia from Great Ocean Road in Australia

Here’s a final recap of my trip last week to the 25th quadrennial congress of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). (My previous posts on this year’s ICN events are here and here; there’s also a podcast of my interview with outgoing ICN president Rosemary Bryant.)

My final few days were busy with sessions as well as a meeting with some members of AJN’s International Advisory Board. Here are some highlights:

2018-03-28T10:30:55-04:00June 4th, 2013|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Redeemed by M*A*S*H

Greg Horton is a widely published freelance writer and an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City Community College. With a new generation of veterans struggling to deal with emotional and physical wounds from their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to find meaningful work in a challenging economy, this story of a father’s 30-year nursing career after his return from the Vietnam War is particularly relevant today.

MASH-dioramaMy father started us on M*A*S*H soon after his return from Korea in 1973. The Vietnam War was nearing its end, although we did not know it at the time. A combat medic during his tour of duty in Vietnam early in the war, on this most recent tour my father had been stationed in Korea for a year at a hospital that received the grievously injured. “Spaghetti and meatball surgery,” he called it.

Our family had moved to Maud, Oklahoma, in 1972 to be near my mother’s family while my dad was in Korea. The endless countryside around our small town, combined with the local dump, gave us more than enough adventures to keep our minds off the war in a country of which we knew little.

M*A*S*H, the legendary television show featuring Alan Alda as the sarcastic antihero, started the year my father left for Korea. We were not a television-watching family, as such. My mother’s Pentecostal background instilled a deep-rooted distrust for the medium, unless Oral Roberts or Rex Humbard was preaching.

However, on my […]

2016-11-21T13:07:24-05:00June 3rd, 2013|career|2 Comments
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Using Evidence-Based Practice to Reduce CAUTIs

By Karen Roush, AJN clinical managing editor

Using evidence-based practice to . . .

Fill in the blank. There’s something on your unit that could be improved—the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), the engagement of family in care, the readmission rate of patients with heart failure, patient satisfaction with pain management. Whatever it may be, you have the ability to improve it. This month we have a CE article (link is below) about an evidence-based practice (EBP) project to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs).

Scanning electron micrograph of S. aureus bacteria on the luminal surface of an indwelling catheter with interwoven complex matrix of extracellular polymeric substances known as a biofilm/ CDC Scanning electron micrograph of S. aureus bacteria on the luminal surface of an indwelling catheter with interwoven complex matrix of extracellular polymeric substances known as a biofilm/ CDC

The really interesting thing about this article, and what makes it especially helpful for beginner quality improvers out there, is that it doesn’t just describe an effective project to reduce CAUTIs. It also describes how to do an EBP project, step-by-step. The author, Tina Magers, a novice EBP mentor, followed the seven steps outlined in AJN’s Evidence-Based Practice series and describes the actions involved in each step. It’s a great how-to on applying evidence to practice. Here’s the overview/abstract of this useful June CE article, “Using Evidence-Based Practice to Reduce Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections”:

Overview: In […]

2017-05-27T10:29:02-04:00May 31st, 2013|nursing perspective|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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