When people must flee their homes due to persecution or conflict, they embark on a journey from loss toward safety that is a global concern and the resettlement country's responsibility. Refugees experience stressors as they secure basic needs such as adequate nutrition, healthcare, transportation, housing, education, and income-generating activities. For refugee women, these stressors are further exacerbated by gender-related roles and experiences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Weight bias toward individuals with higher body weights in healthcare settings is associated with adverse health behaviors, reduced healthcare utilization, and poor health outcomes. The purpose of this integrative review was to explore: (1) What has been measured and described regarding perinatal care providers' and students' weight bias toward pregnant, birthing, and postpartum individuals with higher body weights? (2) What has been measured and described regarding pregnant, birthing, and postpartum individuals' experiences of weight bias? (3) What is the association of experiences of weight bias with perinatal and mental health outcomes among pregnant, birthing, and postpartum individuals?
Methods: We conducted a systematic search in CINAHL, PubMed, and PsycINFO databases to identify relevant research publications related to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms weight prejudice (and related terms) and pregnancy (and related terms). The review was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice model for study quality determination, and the Whittemore and Knafl integrative review framework for data extraction and analyses.
Nurses are underrepresented in health policy. The Jonas Policy Scholars Program is a vital and effective program that promotes mentoring, health policy, and engagement among early nurse researchers. The Jonas Policy Scholars Program should continue and be replicated by other organizations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Weight bias toward individuals with higher body weights is present in health care settings. However, there has been limited quantitative exploration into weight bias among perinatal care providers and its potential variations based on demographic characteristics. The aim of this study was to examine if the direction and extent of weight bias among midwives certified by the American Midwifery Certification Board (AMCB) varied across age, years since certification, body mass index (BMI), race, ethnicity, and US geographic region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Weight bias toward individuals with higher body weights permeates health care settings in the United States and has been associated with poor weight-related communication and quality of care as well as adverse health outcomes. However, there has been limited quantitative investigation into weight bias among perinatal care providers. Certified nurse-midwives (CNMs)/certified midwives (CMs) attend approximately 11% of all births in the United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Midwifery Womens Health
April 2024
Weight bias toward patients in larger bodies is pervasive among health care providers and can negatively influence provider-patient communication, as well as patients' behavior and health outcomes. Weight bias has historical roots that perpetuate thinness and Whiteness as the cultural norm. Although weight bias remains socially acceptable in US culture, contributing factors to an individual's body size are complex and multifactorial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Policies, regulations, and laws influence all aspects of health care, including the education of health care professionals, independent practice, and patient access to care. Health equity and social justice are mediated through policy.
Problem: While health policy knowledge and skills are recognized as essential competencies within nursing and midwifery curricula, most students graduate with limited or no experience engaging in advocacy efforts to advance legislation that would improve health systems and the delivery of care.
Bipolar disorder (BPD) is a lifelong mental health condition characterized by symptoms of mania, depression, and often anxiety. BPD can have detrimental consequences for individuals during pregnancy and the postpartum period, as well as for their offspring. This is often due to underdiagnosis and/or misdiagnosis as unipolar depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the established value of diversity, equity, and inclusion as critical components to achieving academic excellence, building diversity within nursing education remains a challenge. Institutional gatekeeping, overt racism, and implicit biases are barriers that perpetuate a low percentage of nursing faculty of color. From pre-search strategic prioritization to submission of the search committee report, a multi-prong, just, transparent, systematic, and strategic approach to hiring is needed to advance opportunities for hiring a diverse faculty.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHealth care education programs were faced with the need to quickly adapt to a new reality during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Students were temporarily suspended from campus and clinical sites, requiring prompt changes in structure to their didactic and clinical learning. This article describes the rapid adjustments that one midwifery and women's health nurse practitioner education program created using both synchronous and asynchronous simulation experiences to promote student learning and ongoing engagement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite numerous scholarly attempts to understand and improve the health outcomes of childbearing in highly technical, developed countries, a theoretical and methodological deficit persists in regard to capturing a woman and her newborn's intrapartal experience. In an effort to construct a criterion measure and research tool that is not limited to one or two aspects of the labor and delivery experience, the authors created the Labor and Delivery Outcome Scale (LDOS). The LDOS survey was mailed to a nationwide, random sample of 1500 experienced U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Birth certificate and hospital discharge data are relied upon heavily for national surveillance and research on maternal health. Despite the great importance of these data sources, the recording accuracy in these datasets, comparing birth attendant type, has not been evaluated. The study objective was to assess the variation in chart documentation accuracy between certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) and physicians (MDs) for selected maternal variables using birth certificate and hospital discharge data.
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