Ethical considerations for nurse practitioners conducting research in populations with opioid use disorder.

People with opioid use disorder (OUD) are a vulnerable population who face unique risks of harm when participating in research. Despite a long-standing dialogue, written research codes of ethics, and institutional review board oversight for the conduct of ethical research in vulnerable populations, protections for study populations with OUD is rarely mentioned. Nurse practitioners who conduct research using participants with OUD, especially when recruiting their own patients (i.

Attending to the Moral Meaning of Pain.

In addition to a physical and emotional experience, pain is also a morally infused experience with deep, often subconscious, meaning for many sufferers. Whether justified or not, for many people, pain may represent loss, judgement, unworthiness, abandonment, punishment, and even existential suffering and thoughts of death. The moral meaning of pain is what influences the associated experiences of stigma, loneliness, and guilt that contribute to suffering.

Postsurgical Follow-Up Phone Calls: Worth the Investment?

Purpose: To analyze differences in health confidence levels regarding discharge instructions between two groups of same-day surgery patients.

Design: Comparative and descriptive design.

Methods: Phone surveys to two groups: those who received follow-up phone calls from a registered nurse (RN) and those who received standard care instructions at discharge only.

Procedural Pain in the Adult Neurological Intensive Care Unit: A Retrospective Study Examining Arterial Line Insertion.

Background: This was a retrospective chart review of procedural pain assessments and interventions during arterial catheter insertion in an adult neurological intensive care unit where patients with impaired consciousness are common. Overall, pain assessment was well documented (100%) by Registered Nurses, but not specific to arterial line insertion. Nurse practitioners commonly placed arterial lines and used local analgesia in over 75% of the documented procedures.

Developing and Evaluating Multiple-Choice Tests for Trustworthiness.

This article provides the nursing professional development practitioner an overview of effective development and evaluation of a commonly used measure of knowledge: the multiple-choice test. Basic principles of test development and assessment are important for evaluating learning outcomes. When the steps needed to determine the fairness, validity, and reliability of multiple-choice tests are followed, the resulting knowledge tests will lead to more trustworthy results for the evaluation of nursing professional development activities.

Effectiveness of a patient education plan on knowledge of post-op venous thromboembolism survival skills.

Aims And Objectives: To investigate the effectiveness of a multimethod venous thromboembolism prevention patient education plan on participants' knowledge retention.

Background: A potential complication of surgery requiring general anaesthesia, worldwide, is the development of life-threatening venous thromboembolism. Patients need education on preventing, recognising and immediately responding to a suspected thromboembolism.

A New Clinical Pain Knowledge Test for Nurses: Development and Psychometric Evaluation.

All nurses care for patients with pain, and pain management knowledge and attitude surveys for nurses have been around since 1987. However, no validated knowledge test exists to measure postlicensure clinicians' knowledge of the core competencies of pain management in current complex patient populations. To develop and test the psychometric properties of an instrument designed to measure pain management knowledge of postlicensure nurses.

Hospital-acquired pressure injuries: The significance of the advanced practice registered nurse's role in a community hospital.

Background And Purpose: Hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) continue to be a persistent problem in the acute care arena. The purpose of this retrospective quality improvement study was to examine if the introduction of nurse practitioners (NPs), as wound care consultants (WCCs), without other interventions, impacted the HAPI rates in a community hospital.

Methods: A retrospective, comparison design was used; 48 months of HAPI data (May 2010-2014) reported on the monthly National Database for Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) survey was abstracted from hospital records.

Nurses' Written Responses to Pain Management Values Education: A Content Analysis.

Providing optimal pain care for patients is essential to the work of nursing and a measure of patient satisfaction prompting some hospitals to offer pain management classes for clinicians. Although nurses generally do well on knowledge tests after attending a pain class, actual improvement in pain care for patients may not occur. The personal values of the clinician may be a key driver of pain-management decision making.

Investigating the concept of rest for research and practice.

Aims: To report an analysis of the concept of rest; to determine the conceptual maturity (consistent use and meaning) of rest in the current scientific literature and to present a theoretical definition of rest, providing a strong basis for research and practice.

Background: Rest is a physical, mental and spiritual human need, common to all humanity, and is frequently prescribed around the world as a treatment for many maladies. Yet the concept of rest remains subjective, is vaguely defined and is often confused with sleep, limiting its utility for research and practice.

The Pain Experience of Patients Hospitalized With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Phenomenological Study.

Pain is personal, subjective, and best treated when the patient's experience is fully understood. Hospitalization contributes to the physical and psychological complications of acute and chronic pain experienced by patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to develop an understanding of the unique experience of pain in hospitalized patients with an admitting diagnosis of IBD and related care or surgery.

Reviewing the Literature: Essential First Step in Research, Quality Improvement, and Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice.

This article provides nursing professional development specialists with a concise resource on conducting literature reviews: the essential first step of a research project, quality improvement initiative, or the implementation of evidence-based practice. The literature review cannot be overlooked because it sets the foundation for an investigative project's ethical implementation and subsequent success. Conducting a literature review may seem overwhelming for the novice, but these fears can be overcome with knowledge and practical assistance.

Nurses Managing Patients' Pain May Experience Moral Distress.

Bedside nurses care for patients with pain every day but the task is often challenging. A previous qualitative study that investigated nurses' experiences as they treated patients with pain suggested that nurses may suffer from moral distress if they are unsuccessful in providing adequate pain relief. As 20 of the original 48 nurses interviewed described frustration and distress when constrained from doing the right thing to provide pain relief for their patients, the purpose of this secondary qualitative analysis was to answer new research questions on nurse moral distress related to managing pain.

Hospital lighting and its association with sleep, mood and pain in medical inpatients.

Aims: To describe light exposure, sleep-wake patterns, mood, pain and their relationships in adult medical inpatients.

Background: The hospital environment may contribute to patient discomfort by providing a lighting structure that interferes with circadian rhythmicity, sleep, mood and pain.

Design: A descriptive correlational design was used in this preliminary study.

Chronic pain in older adults.

Despite the sophisticated pharmaceutical agents and technologies available today, many people, including older adults, continue to experience chronic pain. Inadequately treated chronic pain can seriously affect one's quality of life. Health care providers are only beginning to understand the structural and functional changes that occur in older adults with chronic pain, but recent research suggests that nurses and other health professionals need to become aware of the unique needs of older adults who live with chronic pain.