Relational skill training for patient engagement and the creation of a trauma-informed critical care.

Patients and families in critical care have a high likelihood of previous and re-experienced trauma. Unaddressed, physical, and psychological impacts of these traumas can worsen outcomes for patients and families. A trauma-informed care approach has been proposed for critical care; however, training programs do not include relational competencies or de-escalation techniques, risking the re-traumatization of patients and families in critical care and negatively impacting clinicians.

Do Not Wait Until It Is Too Late: Using Stay Interviews to Engage and Retain Nursing Staff.

Existing engagement and retention strategies fall short in comprehensively addressing the ongoing nursing workforce crisis and need to be supplemented with proactive, relationship-building approaches such as stay interviews. Stay interviews are structured discussions that leaders conduct with staff members to learn the specific actions that must be taken to strengthen their engagement with the organization. Nurse leaders play a critical role in responding to the current workforce challenges, and stay interviews can support them in developing interventions to promote engagement and retention.

Caring Dads intervention for fathers who have perpetrated abuse within their families: Quasi-experimental evaluation of child protection outcomes over two years.

Background: In Canada, two of the most common forms of maltreatment substantiated by child protective services are child exposure to domestic violence and child physical abuse. Fathers are identified as the parent responsible for a substantial proportion of this maltreatment.

Objective: This study examined whether providing a group-based intervention program for fathers was associated with greater engagement of fathers in child protection case management and with lower rates of subsequent father-perpetrated abuse.

Nursing Student Perceptions of Academic and Clinical Integrity.

Aim: This study aimed to explore how nursing students define and describe academic and clinical integrity and to identify social and psychological influences on student decisions to act with integrity.

Backgroud: Nursing students are exhibiting a decline in academic and clinical integrity. Academic dishonesty often correlates to clinical dishonesty, subsequently impacting patient care quality and safety.

Hedgehog Signaling Regulates Neurogenesis in the Larval and Adult Zebrafish Hypothalamus.

Neurogenesis is now known to play a role in adult hypothalamic function, yet the cell-cell mechanisms regulating this neurogenesis remain poorly understood. Here, we show that Hedgehog (Hh)/Gli signaling positively regulates hypothalamic neurogenesis in both larval and adult zebrafish and is necessary and sufficient for normal hypothalamic proliferation rates. Hh-responsive radial glia represent a relatively highly proliferative precursor population that gives rise to dopaminergic, serotonergic, and GABAergic neurons.

Integrity in nursing students: A concept analysis.

Objective: The purpose of this review was to clarify the concept of nursing student integrity. Unlike published reviews that highlight the absence of integrity, the author sought to identify the positive defining characteristics of integrity.

Design: Concept analysis.

Distinct expression patterns of syndecans in the embryonic zebrafish brain.

Axon pathfinding in the neuroepithelium of embryonic brain is dependent on a variety of short and long range guidance cues. Heparan sulfate proteoglycans such as syndecans act as modulators of these cues and their importance in neural development is highlighted by their phylogenetic conservation. In Drosophilia, a single syndecan is present on the surface of axon growth cones and is required for chemorepulsive signalling during midline crossing.

Frizzled-3a and slit2 genetically interact to modulate midline axon crossing in the telencephalon.

The anterior commissure forms the first axon connections between the two sides of the embryonic telencephalon. We investigated the role of the transmembrane receptor Frizzled-3a in the development of this commissure using zebrafish as an experimental model. Knock down of Frizzled-3a resulted in complete loss of the anterior commissure.

A dynamic Gli code interprets Hh signals to regulate induction, patterning, and endocrine cell specification in the zebrafish pituitary.

Hedgehog (Hh) signaling is necessary for the induction and functional patterning of the pituitary placode, however the mechanisms by which Hh signals are interpreted by placodal cells are unknown. Here we show distinct temporal requirements for Hh signaling in endocrine cell differentiation and describe a dynamic Gli transcriptional response code that interprets these Hh signals within the developing adenohypophysis. Gli1 is required for the differentiation of selected endocrine cell types and acts as the major activator of Hh-mediated pituitary induction, while Gli2a and Gli2b contribute more minor activator functions.

BOC, brother of CDO, is a dorsoventral axon-guidance molecule in the embryonic vertebrate brain.

The early axon scaffolding in the embryonic vertebrate brain consists of a series of ventrally projecting axon tracts that grow into a single major longitudinal pathway connected across the midline by commissures. We have investigated the role of Brother of CDO (BOC), an immunoglobulin (Ig) superfamily member distantly related to the Roundabout (Robo) family of axon-guidance receptors, in the development of this embryonic template of axon tracts in the zebrafish brain. A zebrafish homologue of BOC was isolated and shown to be expressed predominantly in the developing neural plate and later in the neural tube and developing brain.

G1/S phase cyclin-dependent kinase overexpression perturbs early development and delays tissue-specific differentiation in Xenopus.

Cell division and differentiation are largely incompatible but the molecular links between the two processes are poorly understood. Here, we overexpress G1/S phase cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases in Xenopus embryos to determine their effect on early development and differentiation. Overexpression of cyclin E prior to the midblastula transition (MBT), with or without cdk2, results in a loss of nuclear DNA and subsequent apoptosis at early gastrula stages.

Identifying axon guidance defects in the embryonic zebrafish brain.

The method described here outlines a simple protocol to investigate the in vivo function of axon guidance molecules during the development of the embryonic zebrafish brain. By 24 hours postfertilization, a simple scaffold of axon tracts and commissures can be visualised in the brain using acetylated alpha-tubulin, a panaxonal marker that stains all axons. The highly stereotypical trajectory of axons in the embryonic zebrafish brain provides an ideal system in which to study the molecular mechanisms of axon guidance, as defects in the axon scaffold can be clearly visualised.

Zebrafish as an experimental model: strategies for developmental and molecular neurobiology studies.

Zebrafish provide a rapid and effective means for assessing gene function in the vertebrate nervous system. By employing gain- and loss-of-function techniques it is possible to obtain insights into the roles of both wild-type and heterologously expressed genes. Such approaches enable rapid progression from gene discovery to gene expression and finally to gene function even when examining development of a tissue as complex as the nervous system.

The cdk inhibitor p27Xic1 is required for differentiation of primary neurones in Xenopus.

We have investigated the role of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, p27(Xic1), in the coordination of cell cycle exit and differentiation during early neurogenesis. We demonstrate that p27(Xic1) is highly expressed in cells destined to become primary neurones and is essential for an early stage of neurogenesis. Ablation of p27(Xic1) protein prevents differentiation of primary neurones, while overexpressing p27(Xic1) promotes their formation.

Evolution and developmental expression of nuclear receptor genes in the ascidian Herdmania.

Nuclear receptors are a superfamily of metazoan transcription factors that have been shown to be involved in a wide range of developmental and physiological processes. A PCR-based survey of genomic DNA and developmental cDNAs from the ascidian Herdmania identifies eight members of this multigene family. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses reveal that these ascidian nuclear receptors are representative of five of the six previously defined nuclear receptor subfamilies and are apparent homologues of retinoic acid [NR1B], retinoid X [NR2B], peroxisome proliferator-activated [NR1C], estrogen related [NR3B], neuron-derived orphan (NOR) [NR4A3], nuclear orphan [NR4A], TR2 orphan [NR2C1] and COUP orphan [NR2F3] receptors.