A Day to Honor Our Veterans Who Have Served

Today, on Veteran’s Day, AJN would like to honor all of those who have served in the U.S. military, including the 19 million who served during at least one war. This of course includes all those nurses who have served in the armed forces.

Veterans’ health care.

Nurses in every care setting, from hospital to primary care clinic, may encounter veterans, and it’s important to be aware of particular health concerns that may affect them. Please visit our collection of articles on the military and veterans’ health care, which will be free for the next week.

Topics in the collection include, among others:

  • caring for families with deployment stress
  • screening for posttraumatic stress disorder
  • enhancing veteran-centered care
  • traumatic brain injury.

While some of the articles are older, they are still pertinent today. We honor and thank all those who have served.

(Photo credit: Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash.)

2021-11-11T10:50:27-05:00November 11th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Who Cares for the Nurses Who Care for You?

‘An epidemic of nonstop.’

According to Provision 5 of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics, “the nurse owes the same duties to self as to others, including the responsibility to promote health and safety, preserve wholeness of character and integrity, maintain competence, and continue personal and professional growth.” Yet all too often, nurses are viewed as heroes, and this heroization, while perhaps well-intentioned, may exacerbate a reality in which nurses put caring for others ahead of caring for themselves.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a worsening of an issue that has long plagued the nursing profession: “an epidemic of nonstop” in which the lack of basic self-care such as bathroom and meal breaks has become the norm and nurses literally “work until they drop.” The many stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic further heightened the need for nurses to care for themselves.

Workplace benefits and financial protections vary widely for nurses.

Approximately three-quarters of all health care workers, including nearly 90% of nurses, are women. COVID-19 brought to light the gaps in benefits among these workers.

In order to support nurses whose ability to work had been affected by the pandemic by providing them with direct financial assistance through emergency grants, the American Nurses Foundation partnered with

2021-11-10T10:41:13-05:00November 10th, 2021|COVID-19, Nursing, nursing career, women's health|0 Comments
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Nurses Don’t Seek Help When They Need It Most

Nurses with suicidal ideation are less likely to seek help. We need to change that.

The original research article in AJN‘s November issue should prompt concern among the nursing and broader health care community. The article, “Suicidal Ideation and Attitudes Toward Help Seeking in US Nurses Relative to the General Population,” describes the results of a survey sent to nearly 87,000 members of the American Nurses Association (ANA) in late 2017. It provides essential pre-pandemic data which can serve as a post-pandemic baseline going forward.

Higher prevalence of suicidal ideation in nurses.

Of the 7,378 nurses who responded (over 47% were hospital based), 5.5% reported suicidal thoughts over the prior year. Over 43% “screened positive for depression symptoms.” When researchers compared nurses with almost 5,200 age-matched other types of workers, the prevalence of suicidal ideation was 5.8% for nurses, compared to 4.3% for other U.S. workers.

Perhaps of greatest concern is that while most nurses (85%) indicated they would seek help for emotional problems, of those reporting having had suicidal ideation, 72.6% said that they would “probably or definitely” seek help. According to the authors, this is similar to results from studies of physicians and medical students.

As caregivers, we often ignore our own needs and focus on those of others. […]

2021-11-04T09:35:44-04:00November 4th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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‘I Didn’t Think It Would Happen to Me’

A daughter notices cognitive changes in her mother, a former geriatrics nurse.

Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN.

This month’s Reflections essay, “In Full Bloom,” is a gentle, humane exploration of what it’s like when an aging parent shows signs of cognitive decline. Author Diane Fraser deftly weaves memory, incident, and reflection together in this bittersweet one-page essay.

She describes her mother’s dawning realization of the hard reality of her own aging. “I’m old,” she said. “I’m really old.”

And then later, perhaps also alluding to her worsening dementia:

“I didn’t think it would happen to me. . . Those were my patients. This is me.”

There’s a family birthday party. An annual visit to a lilac festival where the author begins to find certain aspects of her mother’s behavior puzzling.

This is all described with lightness and respect. It’s just how it is, the author seems to suggest. We might as well make the best of it.

She remembers the sometimes bawdy stories her […]

2021-11-01T10:19:57-04:00November 1st, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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In All Nature’s Glory: One Patient’s Presurgical Ritual

‘Join me.’

I walked into the preoperative waiting area one morning, ready to begin my day. Standing outside my first patient’s bed bay, I asked through the drawn curtain if I could enter. Silence. I waited and then called out the patient’s name again. Again, nothing. I peeked behind the curtain. There was the patient standing in all of nature’s glory, arms extended in front of the window—eyes closed.

I stepped back and then heard her say, “Come in, join me.” I felt caught off guard, unsure of what to do. But I was also curious, so I went in.

The patient turned her head towards me and said, “Just stand next to me—the collective mind brings more energy.”

So I did. The view from this patient’s room showed a river running alongside the facility. Like her, I looked out onto the river. The sun was beginning to rise and the sky was a beautiful blend of pink and blue. I closed my eyes and a sense of serenity gently settled over me.

We stood together in silence for just a minute or two. Then the patient turned to me, grabbed her gown, and said, “Now, how can I help you?”

I found that I was smiling as I heard myself […]

2021-10-27T09:46:54-04:00October 27th, 2021|Nursing, nursing stories, patient engagement|1 Comment
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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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