original research Archives - Page 8 of 10

July Issue: Implicit Bias in Nursing, Grief Support for Hospital Staff, Understanding Malpractice, More

“Get to know patients’ former selves. Ask different questions. Discover their answers. I am so glad I did.” —Jennifer Chicca, author of the July Reflections column, “What Joanna Would Have Wanted”

The July issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

CE: Original Research: Helping Health Care Providers and Staff Process Grief Through a Hospital-Based Program

This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of offering an intensive bereavement support program—aimed at addressing grief and loss related to both professional and personal experiences—to hospital employees in a large health system.

CE: Addressing Implicit Bias in Nursing: A Review

This article describes the ways that implicit, or unconscious, bias among health care providers can contribute to health care disparities, and offers strategies nurses can use to discover and overcome their own implicit biases.

Special Feature: Rising to the Challenge: Re-Embracing the Wald Model of Nursing

The author discusses how Lillian Wald’s model of health care, in which nurses work at the intersection of medicine and society, may be useful today as nurses seek to address diseases of despair and improve health equity.

Transition to Practice: Surviving Your First Code

This article prepares new nurses for their first code, describes what happens during a code, and reviews the responsibilities of the resuscitation team.

The Complex Working Relationships Between National and Expatriate RNs on Humanitarian Missions

Photo via Flickr / Andrew Smith

Each summer, many nurses and nursing students join humanitarian aid missions, traveling to countries where health resources are scarce in order to work in medical clinics, on surgical teams, or as part of a public health brigade to serve impoverished communities. They work alongside local health workers, often under crisis conditions. We tend to take for granted that there are no downsides to these efforts. But how do local nurses feel about working with (and usually under the supervision of) nurses from other countries?

In 2014, nurse Debbie Wilson worked in an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia. It wasn’t her first overseas medical mission. But under the particularly intense conditions of the deadly Ebola outbreak, she worked very closely with the Liberian nurses in the unit—nurses whose own family members, friends, and coworkers had died of the disease. (Read about Wilson’s experience here.) Over time, these nurses shared with Wilson their stories of positive and negative experiences working with other expatriate nurses in the center.

Since that deployment, Wilson has teamed up with her Liberian colleague Darlington S. Jallah to formally explore the working relationship between expats and local nurses. They share their findings in Exploring Working Relationships Between National and Expatriate RNs on Humanitarian Aid Missions: The Perspectives of Liberian Nurses in the June issue of AJN.

Wilson and Jallah led focus groups with Liberian […]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2019-06-19T10:54:55-04:00June 19th, 2019|Nursing|2 Comments

May Issue: Assessing a Child’s Pain, Handling Work-Related Stress, Stop the Bleed, More

“Nursing takes a steely courage that many people don’t possess. We deal with raw emotions on a daily basis, taking in the grief and loss and pain and hopelessness of patients and families who look to us to make them feel better.”—AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her May editorial

The May issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

CE: Original Research: Work-Related Stress and Positive Thinking Among Acute Care Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Survey

In the first U.S. study to evaluate acute care nurses’ use of positive thinking in managing work-related stress, the authors found that positive thinking skills are being used to cope with such stress, and that nurses’ use of these skills can be improved through training.

CE: Assessing a Child’s Pain

This article discusses the factors that can influence a child’s report of pain, describes components of a comprehensive pediatric pain assessment, and reviews appropriate pain assessment scales for children of different ages and levels of cognitive development.

Nursing and the Sustainable Development Goals: From Nightingale to Now

The authors explore how nurses can contextualize the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals within their daily practice and create holistic plans of care for patients, families, communities, and nations.

Leading the Effort to Promote Bleeding Control in Our Communities

This article […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2019-04-29T08:16:17-04:00April 29th, 2019|Nursing|1 Comment

February Issue: Caring for Hodgkin Lymphoma Survivors, Acute Flaccid Myelitis, Reducing Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia, More

“I experienced the inestimable value of a healing garden . . . Regardless of diagnosis, age, circumstances, or ability to pay, nature willingly extends her gifts and does not forsake us.”—Elaine C. Meyer, author of the February Reflections column

The February issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

CE: Original Research: Midlife Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia in Relation to Cognitive Function Later in Life in Black Women

In light of a lack of research on the associations between vascular risk factors and cognitive function in black older adults, the authors explored the relationship between two such risk factors in midlife—hypertension and hypercholesterolemia—and cognitive function later in life among black women.

CE: Caring for Survivors of Hodgkin Lymphoma

This article—winner of the 2018 Nurse Faculty Scholars/AJN Mentored Writing Award—provides an overview of Hodgkin lymphoma, the most common late effects of treatment, and current recommendations for survivor surveillance and screening.

Cultivating Quality: A Nurse-Driven Oral Care Protocol to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia

The authors describe a quality improvement initiative to implement an oral care protocol in the adult in-patient care areas of a level 1 trauma hospital and evaluate its impact on the incidence of hospital-acquired pneumonia.

January Issue: Antineoplastic Drug Administration and PPE Use Among Nurses, Helping Students Be ‘Gritty,’ Much More

“Grit is an essential component of a great nurse. Hardy, tenacious, tough nurses are the result of experience and knowledge.”—Linda Koharchik, author of the January Teaching for Practice column

The January issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: Original Research: Antineoplastic Drug Administration by Pregnant and Nonpregnant Nurses: An Exploration of the Use of Protective Gloves and Gowns

Despite longstanding recommendations for the safe handling of hazardous drugs, it’s not known whether nurses—including those who are pregnant—wear protective gloves and gowns when administering chemotherapeutic drugs. This study examines this practice among nurses in the Nurses’ Health Study 3.

CE: Addressing Food Insecurity in Vulnerable Populations

The authors discuss the factors that contribute to food insecurity and the populations at greatest risk, as well as screening tools and resources for vulnerable patients.

Teaching for Practice: Helping Students to Be Gritty

Strategies for fostering grit—a trait marked by perseverance and resilience and associated with success—in nursing students.

Cultivating Quality: Early, Nurse-Directed Sepsis Care

This article describes a single-center, multiyear quality improvement initiative designed to promote early recognition and treatment of sepsis and examines its effect on sepsis-related mortality rates, bundle adherence, and the need for rapid response team calls.