Handlers' Expectations and Perceived Compatibility regarding the Partnership with Their First Guide Dogs.

The main function of a guide dog is as a mobility aid, but they can also fulfill psychosocial roles as companions, social facilitators, and objects/providers of affection. This study examined the outcome of 50 peoples' (handlers) partnerships with their first guide dog. Overall compatibility and the fulfilment of the handlers' expectations regarding mobility and social factors related to guide dog usage were measured, and relationships between putative risk factors and the outcome of matching success were identified.

A survey of nurses prescribing in diabetes care: Practices, barriers and facilitators in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Aims And Objectives: To compare diabetes-related prescribing practices, barriers and facilitators amongst nurse prescribers in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Background: Nurses have been prescribing in the United Kingdom for many years but nurse prescribing in New Zealand is relatively recent. It is unknown whether similar system factors act to facilitate or limit prescribing.

The End of the Partnership With a Guide Dog: Emotional Responses, Effects on Quality of Life and Relationships With Subsequent Dogs.

Guide dogs are mobility aids that facilitate independent travel of people who are blind or visually impaired. Additional benefits imparted to the guide dog handler include companionship, and increased: social-function, self-esteem and confidence. Some evidence shows that the end of the guide dog partnership can result in reduced mobility, and may have profound psychosocial effects on the handler due to feelings of bereavement and loss of self-esteem.

Support for living well with long-term conditions: How people manage.

Aims And Objectives: To explore how people self-manage their long-term conditions and the support enabling them to do so.

Background: People with long-term conditions are required to engage in daily self-management with the support of health practitioners, family and friends.

Design: A qualitative interview study.

Chronic pain: good management of practical pain control strategies is associated with being older, more health activated and having better mental health.

INTRODUCTION Chronic pain affects a large proportion of the adult population and people in pain need to learn how to manage it in order to maintain quality of life. AIM This study aimed to examine how well people with long-term conditions make use of self-management strategies to control their pain, and to identify personal attributes associated with a higher degree of success. METHODS People with chronic pain who participated in the first phase of a longitudinal long-term conditions study in the MidCentral region made up the study sample (N=326, response rate 21%).

The role and measurement of patient activation in the management of long-term conditions in New Zealand.

Aim: Patient activation represents people's knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their own health. We provide information regarding the nature of patient activation and use New Zealand data to consider its utility in New Zealand.

Methods: Self-report data using the patient activation measure (PAM) and seven health and general practice experience measures were collected from 544 general practice patients in the MidCentral region.

Impact of postgraduate education on advanced practice nurse activity - a national survey.

Background: There is a wealth of international evidence concerning the contribution post-registration master's level education makes to advancing the discipline of nursing. There are approximately 277 nurse practitioners registered in NZ, but they account for only a small portion of nurses who have undertaken master's level education. The additional contribution these nurses make to the work environment through advanced practice activities has not, hitherto, been documented.

An Investigation of the Complexities of Successful and Unsuccessful Guide Dog Matching and Partnerships.

Matching a person who is blind or visually impaired with a guide dog is a process of finding the most suitable guide dog available for that individual. Not all guide dog partnerships are successful, and the consequences of an unsuccessful partnership may result in reduced mobility and quality of life for the handler (owner), and are costly in time and resources for guide dog training establishments. This study examined 50 peoples' partnerships with one or more dogs (118 pairings) to ascertain the outcome of the relationship.

Accounting for differences in cognitive health between older adults in New Zealand and the USA.

Background: National differences in cognitive health of older adults provide an opportunity to shed light on etiological factors. We compared the cognitive health of older adults in New Zealand and the USA, and examined differences in known risk factors.

Methods: Two nationally representative samples were derived from the 2010 waves of the New Zealand Longitudinal Study of Ageing (n = 953) and the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (n = 3,746).

Learning from people with chronic pain: messages for primary care practitioners.

Introduction: A large number of people live with chronic, non-malignant pain, which impacts on their work, social activity and quality of life. For many people pain appears to be inadequately treated and controlled, in part due to a reluctance to take appropriate medication. The aim of this study was to learn more about people's experience of pain in the context of long-term illness, in order to inform primary health care practice.

A quantitative assessment of residual protein levels on dental instruments reprocessed by manual, ultrasonic and automated cleaning methods.

Objective: To assess residual protein on dental instruments cleaned in general dental practice by manual, manual plus ultrasonic and automated washer disinfector (AWD) processes.

Design And Setting: Instruments submitted by 30 dental surgeries in the South West of England.

Subjects (materials) And Methods: Instruments analysed were matrix bands, associated retaining clips, diamond and stainless steel burs, extraction forceps and hand scalers.

Rural nurse to nurse practitioner: an ad hoc process.

Introduction: Despite a 10-year history of nurse practitioner (NP) development in New Zealand (NZ) there is no formalised or universal process for ensuring the transition of willing nurses to NP status. This unmet need is of particular interest in the rural context where workforce issues are paramount. The aim of this study was to explore the transition from rural nurse to NP in NZ.

Taking the PACIC back to basics: the structure of the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care.

Rationale, Aims And Objectives: The Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) is a widely used 20-item measure consisting of five subscales. Published factor analyses of PACIC scores have produced conflicting results on the measure's factorial validity, and therefore some confusion as to the utility of its subscales. We aim to reduce this confusion by reviewing the evidence on the PACIC's factorial validity, exploring the statistical issues it raises, and considering more broadly what such analyses can reveal about the validity of the PACIC.

Providing and receiving self-management support for chronic illness: patients' and health practitioners' assessments.

Introduction: Providing care for people with chronic illness is a major issue for health practitioners around the world, especially as populations age. Encouraging self-management is beneficial in terms of relieving the burden on the health system and promoting better health and adherence to medication and advice amongst this group.

Aim: To measure the level of self-management support being provided to and received by people living with chronic illness in a District Health Board (DHB) region.

Modifying the PACIC to assess provision of chronic illness care: an exploratory study with primary health care nurses.

Introduction: In line with Wagner's Chronic Care Model, the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) has been developed to evaluate chronic illness care delivery from the patient's perspective. Modification of the instrument to assess the same aspects of care delivery from the health practitioner's perspective would enable individual practitioners to evaluate their own provision of self-management support, and would also enable a more direct comparison between care provided and care received within the chronic illness context.

Aim: To explore the potential of a modified PACIC instrument to assess individual health practitioners' delivery of care to chronic illness patients with a sample of primary health care nurses.

Thermostable adenylate kinase technology: a new process indicator and its use as a validation tool for the reprocessing of surgical instruments.

Adenylate kinase (tAK), a thermostable enzyme, was assessed as a possible means of providing a quantitative measure of cleaning efficacy suitable for validating the performance of an automated washer disinfector (AWD) during routine use. Two indicator formulations were developed using either a commercially available washer disinfector soil or a protein-based soil. Each indicator consisted of 100 microg (in test soil) of tAK dried on to a steel or plastic surface.

Public health nurses' views on their position within a changing health system.

To date nursing research exploring the relevance of the practice environment has focused substantially on the experiences of hospital-based nurses. More recently greater attention has been paid to the community nursing environment and nurses involved in primary health care. This study considers the context of public health nursing in New Zealand, firstly by exploring the creation and development of the public health nursing role and secondly by presenting the results of a survey of nurses' views of their practice environments and of their professional positioning at the time of the introduction of Primary Health Organisations (PHOs).

Nurses' understandings of the Professional Development Recognition Programme.

Professional Development and Recognition Programmes (PDRP) for nurses have developed out of the Clinical Career Pathways (CCP) of the 1990s. The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (2003) has now required all health professionals to provide evidence that their practice meets criteria set by the individual regulatory body, which, for nursing, is the Nursing Council of New Zealand. In 2002 a tool was developed to measure knowledge and attitudes of the then CCP which was tested with 239 nurses.

Organizational attributes valued by hospital, home care, and district nurses in the United States and New Zealand.

Purpose: To determine whether hospital-based, home care, and district nurses identify a core set of organizational attributes in the nursing work environment that they value as important to the support of professional practice.

Design: Survey data, collected in 2002-2003 from 403 home care nurses in the United States (US) and 320 district nurses in New Zealand (NZ), were pooled with an existing data set of 669 hospital-based nurses to conduct this descriptive, nonexperimental study.

Methods: The importance of organizational attributes in the nursing work environment was measured using the Nursing Work Index-Revised (NWI-R).

Efficacy of antiviral agents in feline herpetic keratitis: results of an in vitro study.

Purpose: To determine, by a plaque reduction assay, the in vitro efficacy of novel antiviral agents in the treatment of feline herpes virus 1 (FHV-1) keratitis in the domestic cat (Felis felis).

Materials And Methods: A standard plaque reduction assay was performed using a laboratory strain of FHV-1 and embryo-derived feline kidney cells to determine the in vitro efficacy of the antiviral drugs penciclovir (PCV), bromovinyldeoxyuridine (BVdU), and (S)-9-(3-hydroxy-2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl) adenine (HPMPA) and to compare these with the drugs acyclovir (ACV) and trifluorothymidine (TFT). Efficacy was assessed by determining the dose of drug at which 50% plaque reduction was noted (ED(50)).

To have or to take: discourse, positioning, and narrative identity in women's accounts of HRT.

Using 'social cognitive' frameworks, attitudes to HRT have been examined as if they were stable entities located within individuals. However, qualitative studies have revealed variations and contradictions in women's 'attitudes'. We seek to explain these apparent contradictions by using a social constructionist approach to the analysis of qualitative data from 7 focus group discussions about HRT with 48 women in New Zealand.

Health correlates of autonomy, control and professional relationships in the nursing work environment.

Background: Internationally, nursing is facing a variety of challenges including changes in health systems, an ageing workforce and escalating shortages of Registered Nurses. New Zealand is no exception. Here as elsewhere these challenges are taking their toll on the resources and demands of hospital environments, on the health and well-being of nurses themselves and most certainly on the people for whom they care.

Measuring perceptions of the clinical career pathway in a New Zealand hospital.

Clinical Career Pathways (CCPs) for nurses were introduced in the 1970s and they were first established in New Zealand during the late 1980s. The implementation of CCP programmes has met with mixed response; many nurses view it negatively as an extra and unnecessary demand from their employers while others perceive it to be a valuable form of professional development. This paper introduces a new instrument, the Clinical Career Pathway Evaluation Tool (CCPET) designed to assess nurses' and midwives' knowledge of and attitudes towards their Clinical Career Pathway.

Characterization of cDNA encoding basic fibroblast growth factor of the marsupial Monodelphis domestica.

We have isolated and characterized a 1,593-bp cDNA containing the coding region of the basic fibroblast growth factor (BFGF) gene of a marsupial, the opossum Monodelphis domestica. The encoded protein is 156 amino acids long. The BFGF gene of M.

Enhanced pyrimidine dimer repair in cultured murine epithelial cells transfected with the denV gene of bacteriophage T4.

The patch size for excision repair of ultraviolet radiation (UV)-induced pyrimidine dimers was determined in cultured murine epithelial cells with normal and enhanced pyrimidine dimer repair capabilities. Cells with enhanced pyrimidine dimer repair were produced by transfecting 308 cells with the denV gene of bacteriophage T4; this gene encodes the enzyme endonuclease V. Pyrimidine dimer repair following exposure to UV from an FS-40 sunlamp was determined by micrococcal dimer-specific nuclease digestion and alkaline sucrose ultracentrifugation.