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AJN’s Top 15 Most Viewed Articles in 2013

by rosmary/via Flickr

We thought readers might be interested in seeing which articles and topics got the most page views in 2013. Many of these articles are open access, including a number of CE articles as well as the articles from our Evidence-Based Practice: Step by Step series. Some articles require an AJN subscription or individual article purchase. Several of the articles in this list were from recent years other than 2013; a couple were much older, but are evidently still relevant, since not every idea in nursing is ephemeral or subject to improvement by the next generation.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

1. “Asking the Clinical Question: A Key Step in Evidence-Based Practice” – (March, 2010) – part of AJN‘s EBP series

2. “Improving Communication Among Nurses, Patients, and Physicians” – (November, 2009)

3. “The Seven Steps of Evidence-Based Practice” – (January, 2010) – part of our EBP series

4. “Nurses and the Affordable Care Act” – (September, 2010)

5. “From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice” – (December, 1984; not HTML version; readers must click through to PDF version)

6. “COPD Exacerbations” – (CE article; February, 2013)

7. “Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest” – (CE; July, 2012)

8.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:05:35-05:00January 24th, 2014|Nursing|0 Comments

Smoking, Nurses, Knowledge: We’ve Come a Long Way, But Not Far Enough

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

“Smoke break”/by sylvar, via Flickr

Back in the day, I remember riding in the car with my parents, both of whom smoked. My siblings and I used to jockey for the window seats so we could be near the fresh air streaming in. And I recall holidays with visiting relatives when all the adults would sit in the living room smoking cigarettes. (Kent filter-tips for the women; Camels for the men.) And as kids, we used to “smoke” candy cigarettes. The ones that “puffed” when you blew into them were our favorites.

But I also recall getting older and not wanting to visit my Uncle Joe, a once tough New York City police detective, because he would just sit on the edge of his chair, leaning over a table and struggling to breathe. This made my dad quit cold turkey after he had a heart attack at age 48 and our family physician told him he could either keep smoking or quit and see his children get married. My mom quit when she was pregnant with my youngest sister, after the surgeon general’s report said smoking could harm the fetus.

Our parents were constantly telling us that they wished they’d never started (my […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2018-03-28T10:27:17-04:00January 22nd, 2014|nursing perspective|3 Comments

Getting Osteoarthritis on Nurses’ Radar

Many providers and patients alike feel arthritis is inevitable and there’s nothing that can be done aside from taking pain medication—but that’s wrong. There are measures that can slow progression and make joint replacement a less inevitable outcome. The key is getting patients on regimens early on, before there is significant damage in the joint.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:12:21-05:00July 27th, 2011|nursing perspective|0 Comments

Children, Swimming Pools, and Preventing Death by Drowning

Boy in children’s swimming pool/image via Wikipedia

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief—Most children love water, from splashing in puddles to throwing rocks into streams to just playing in the bathtub (a favorite activity of one of my boys was to stand on a chair at the kitchen sink and “wash dishes” with mounds of bubbles). Keeping them away from potentially dangerous situations around water requires constant vigilance when they’re young and repeated warnings as they get older. But often that’s not enough. Too many children drown or nearly drown each year in backyard swimming pools. U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows drowning as the second leading cause of death from unintentional injuries among children ages one to 14.

Last Friday, there was an especially heart-wrenching story: one-year-old twin boys both drowned in a backyard pool in Northern California. Their mother found them, pulled them out of the pool, and tried to revive them but was unsuccessful. I can’t imagine the depths of her grief.

We tend to think that it’s only the large, in-ground swimming pools that pose a hazard. But a recent study by pool management by United Pools, documents that danger persists for all pools, including small backyard portable pools (wading pools, inflatable pools, soft-sided pop-up pools, etc). It […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2017-05-22T13:47:26-04:00July 20th, 2011|Nursing|1 Comment

Health Care Reform Must Target Hospitals, Physicians Who Push Expensive Treatments Over Prevention

But the cost of the hospitalization alone for an uncomplicated bariatric surgery is now about $28,000. That goes up to over $38,000 if complications arise—and almost $70,000 if the patient has to be readmitted. Now, what if a patient decides he'd like to go to a nutritionist every week for several years to gradually lose the weight and change his eating habits permanently? Let's say that the cost of seeing a nutritionist is $100 per visit—that's just over $15,000, but who's paying to put up signs advertising a hospital's nutritional service for weight loss ?

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:22:38-05:00September 10th, 2009|health care policy|3 Comments