AJN in April: Nurse Perceptions of Risk for Harm, Climate Change and Mental Health, More

The April issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles we’d like to bring to your attention.

CE Feature: Original Research: Do Nurses or Electronic Assessment Tools Better Predict Risk for Harm?

In many hospitals, nurse-led “safety huddles” are used to relay patient safety information, although whether this effectively identifies patients at risk for harm has not been determined. New electronic risk assessment tools are designed to identify patients at risk for harm during hospitalization, based on specific markers in the electronic health record. The authors of this study compared the results of both methods, finding statistically significant differences in the way nurses and data mining software identify risk of harm. In many instances, factors that the software captured had been anticipated by the nurses or were already addressed in the plan of care.

CE Feature: Overactive Bladder in Women

This article provides an evidence-based review of the screening, assessment, and management of overactive bladder in women, many of whom do not seek help for the condition and try to self-manage its symptoms, which may inadvertently worsen them. Those with overactive bladder often experience related physical and psychological symptoms and report a poorer quality of life […]

2017-03-27T09:34:06-04:00March 27th, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments

Ann Burgess: Forensic Nursing Pioneer

Ann Wolbert Burgess, DNSc, RN, APRN-BC, FAAN. Photo courtesy of Caitlin Cunningham Photography.

Last fall, Ann Wolbert Burgess was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing. It’s a fitting honor for a nurse who has spent decades studying victims of trauma and abuse and the perpetrators of those crimes, in addition to working alongside the FBI and testifying as an expert in the courtroom. She has also written numerous articles and books and currently teaches forensics at Boston College.

Burgess earned her doctorate in psychiatric nursing from Boston University, and thought she’d ultimately be a nurse psychotherapist—but her career path took a different turn than she expected. In the early 1970s, motivated by the feminist movement, Burgess and her colleague Lynda Lytle Holmstrom started one of the first hospital-based crisis counseling programs for rape victims, at Boston City Hospital.

The program enabled nurses to provide counseling to rape victims, and allowed Burgess and Holmstrom to conduct research on rape victimology. […]

2017-02-14T13:06:24-05:00February 13th, 2017|career, Nursing|2 Comments

This is What Democracy Looks Like, Nurses Included

Photos by Karen Roush.

“Nursing leaders have called upon all nurses to be heard, from bedside to boardroom and beyond. Not all of us share the same political views, and that is how it should be.”

By Karen Roush, PhD, RN, assistant professor of nursing at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and founder of the Scholar’s Voice, which works to strengthen the voice of nursing through writing mentorship for nurses.

On Saturday, I marched with over a million others in Washington, D.C., to protest the policies and rhetoric of the incoming Trump administration, along with millions more who marched in sister protests throughout the world. It was a day marked by exhilarating solidarity, determination, and hopefulness.

People of every age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation—all the ways you can try to divide people—stood together. Many carried signs and banners: some funny or clever plays on words, many serious messages of inclusiveness or demands for rights and action. Throughout the day strangers exchanged smiles and nods, […]

2017-01-24T11:15:20-05:00January 24th, 2017|Nursing|1 Comment

AJN Collections of Note: From Women’s Health Issues to Assessment Tools for Older Adults

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

'Nuff Said by ElektraCute / Elektra Noelani Fisher, via Flickr. Elektra Noelani Fisher/ Flickr

It’s easy to miss, but there’s a tab at the top of the AJN home page that will take you to our collections page. There you can delve more deeply into a wide range of topics—and find many options for obtaining continuing education credits in the process.

For example, you’ll find a collection of recent continuing education (CE) feature articles devoted to women’s health issues, such as menopausal hormone therapy, cardiovascular disease prevention for women, and issues faced by young women who are BRCA positive.

The patient population in the U.S. continues to age. To gain confidence in meeting the needs of these patients, nurses can consult our practical collection of articles and videos devoted to the use of evidence-based geriatric assessment tools and best practices.

For the more creative side of nursing, we have a collection of 20 visual works and poems from our Art of Nursing column.

For those concerned with potential legal issues, it’s a good idea to have a look at the three CE articles from our Legal Clinic column on protecting your nursing license.

For would-be authors and those interested […]

More Than a Headache: Migraines and Stroke Risk for Women

Photo by author. All rights reserved. Photo by author. All rights reserved.

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP, clinical managing editor

I used to think I was lucky. Most of the women in my family have migraines—awful, vomiting for three days, intense pain migraines. Not me. Oh, I have migraines. But no pain, no vomiting, just a visual aura—squiggly lines and loss of part of my visual field for about 45 minutes and then I’m good to go.

I was thankful that I just had the aura instead of the pain and vomiting. But now the evidence shows that migraine with aura, especially when there is no vomiting involved, is an independent risk factor for stroke, as much as if I were overweight, smoking cigarettes, and walking around with my blood pressure through the roof.

And it’s not just having migraines that places me at greater risk for a stroke. […]

2017-07-11T14:42:45-04:00February 12th, 2014|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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