Benefits of Being Teamed with a Service Dog for Individuals Living with Visible and Invisible Disabilities.

Over 61 million people in the United States are living with disabilities. Less than one percent are teamed with service dogs. A service dog is a type of assistance dog specifically trained to perform a disability-related task(s) to assist the person and support their independence.

Effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing for reducing physiological and psychological stress in adults: a quantitative systematic review.

Objective: The objective of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing for reducing physiological and psychological stress in adults 18 years and over.

Introduction: Stress has reached epidemic proportions globally. Unidentified sequela of physiological and psychological stress can result in anxiety, depression, heart disease, cancer, immunologic conditions and death.

Effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing on physiological and psychological stress in adults: a quantitative systematic review protocol.

What is the effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing on physiological and psychological stress in adults?

An Enhanced Cultural Competence Curriculum and Changes in Transcultural Self-Efficacy in Doctor of Nursing Practice Students.

Purpose: The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree is the most advanced clinical leadership role in nursing. Curricula prepare these students to design, implement, evaluate, and continuously improve high-quality culturally specific health care delivery and outcomes.

Design: Guided by the cultural competence and confidence model, the Transcultural Self-Efficacy Tool was used to assess the impact of an enhanced cultural competence curriculum on transcultural self-efficacy perceptions of DNP students ( n = 54).

Grieving the Loss of Self: Challenges in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Self-Management.

The aim of this study was to understand and describe the experience of diabetes self-management among patients not meeting glycemic control (A1C 9). Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a complex chronic disease process. Diabetes self-management is equally complex and critical to patient outcomes and quality of life.

Evidence-Based Practice Beliefs and Implementation in Doctor of Nursing Practice Students.

Background: Doctors of Nursing Practice focus on leadership in evidence-based practice (EBP). EBP is influenced by one's beliefs in and implementation of EBP. Little is known to date about the EBP beliefs and implementation of Doctor of Nursing Practice students and outcomes of Doctor of Nursing Practice education.

Effectiveness of school-based family asthma educational programs in quality of life and asthma exacerbations in asthmatic children aged five to 18: a systematic review.

Background: Asthma is a common, chronic, non-communicable respiratory disease that affects millions of children worldwide. Asthma exacerbations can range from mild to severe and can have an unfavorable impact on the quality of life of children and their caregivers. Asthma exacerbations often result in absenteeism from school or work, activity intolerance and emergency hospital visits.

The effectiveness of structured interdisciplinary collaboration for adult home hospice patients on patient satisfaction and hospital admissions and re-admissions: a systematic review.

Background: Patient satisfaction and hospital re-admission rates are the two major outcomes for measuring quality of healthcare delivery. Interdisciplinary collaboration, a concept that describes coordination of care between multiple healthcare professionals and patients and families to deliver the highest quality of care across settings, is fundamental to improving patient outcomes. Home hospice care is palliative in nature and is a critical segment of patient care.

Effectiveness of Child Advocacy Centers and the multidisciplinary team approach on prosecution rates of alleged sex offenders and satisfaction of non-offending caregivers with allegations of child sexual abuse: a systematic review.

Background: Child sexual abuse is a multifaceted issue that negatively affects the lives of millions of children worldwide. These children suffer numerous medical and psychological long-term adverse effects both in childhood and adulthood. It is imperative to implement evidence- based interventions for the investigation of this crime.

The effectiveness of school-based family asthma educational programs on the quality of life and number of asthma exacerbations of children aged five to 18 years diagnosed with asthma: a systematic review protocol.

Review Objective: The objective of this review is to identify the best available quantitative evidence related to the effectiveness of school-based family asthma educational programs on the quality of life and number of asthma exacerbations of children aged five to18 years with a diagnosis of asthma.

Background: Asthma is a serious public health issue globally and nationally. The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Asthma Report 2014 estimates that 334 million people worldwide currently suffer from asthma.

A qualitative systematic review of internal and external influences on shared decision-making in all health care settings.

The objective of this review is to identify and synthesize the best available evidence related to the meaningfulness of internal and external influences on shared-decision making for adult patients and health care providers in all health care settings.The specific questions to be answered are: BACKGROUND: Patient-centered care is emphasized in today's healthcare arena. This emphasis is seen in the works of the International Alliance of Patients' Organizations (IAOP) who describe patient-centered healthcare as care that is aimed at addressing the needs and preferences of patients.

The effectiveness of delegation interventions by the registered nurse to the unlicensed assistive personnel and their impact on quality of care, patient satisfaction, and RN staff satisfaction: a systematic review.

Background: Delegation by the registered nurse is a decision making process that includes assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Due to an ever-expanding global shortage of nurses, registered nurses are increasingly dependent on unlicensed assistive personnel to assist in the provision of safe patient care. Delegation is recognised as a fundamental nursing skill that can be utilised effectively to improve quality care.

A systematic review on the effectiveness of continuity of care and its role in patient satisfaction and decreased hospital readmissions in the adult patient receiving home care services.

Background: Continuity of care, a concept that in its broadest terms describes patient and provider coordination across time and settings, has evidenced a positive correlation with patient satisfaction and hospital readmission rates. Home health care, where patients receive care from a variety of healthcare practitioners, is one area where these measures are being investigated to determine the effectiveness of continuity of care.

Objective: To examine and synthesize the best available evidence related to the effectiveness of continuity of care interventions and their impact on patient satisfaction and all-cause hospital readmissions rates in the adult patient who is receiving home care services.

A systematic review of the effectiveness of nurse coordinated transitioning of care on readmission rates for patients with heart failure.

Background: Readmission rates for patients with heart failure are a major concern for hospitals worldwide. The importance of patient education and a structured care plan to ease the transition from hospital to home has been the focus of many intervention strategies to reduce readmission rates. The use of transitioning of care plans is believed to improve medication reconciliation, communication, patient education, and follow-up.

Strategies for learning evidence-based practice: critically appraising clinical practice guidelines.

Nurse educators have a mandate to educate our students about using an evidence-based practice approach to clinical decision making. At the Lienhard School of Nursing, Pace University, faculty have successfully integrated evidence-based practice into the family nurse practitioner curriculum. This article describes one teaching-learning strategy to help students learn how to critically appraise clinical practice guidelines using the AGREE instrument.

Disciplinary perspectives on evidence-based practice: the more the merrier.

A Google search on June 14, 2007, produced 59,700,000 hits for the term evidence-based practice. While this is a popular term today in health care, it is most interesting that the use of this term crosses disciplinary boundaries. With the current trend toward interdisciplinary approaches to our work, the question arises: What does evidence-based practice mean and how is it defined and used by various disciplines?

Evidence for smoking cessation: Implications for gender-specific strategies.

Background: Facilitating smoking cessation requires an evidence-based approach. The Lienhard School of Nursing Institute for Healthy Aging in the United States, whose focus is providing health information to aging baby boomers, developed an interest in studying strategies for smoking cessation in women.

Approach: Studies were reviewed and critiqued related to the question: What is the relative efficacy of first-line smoking cessation interventions for women versus men in the 40- to 65-year-old age group? This article first discusses the procedure used to construct an integrative framework for finding the evidence on smoking cessation, including a literature search and refinement of the problem to be studied, and then a summary of the evidence gathered on the selected variable (gender) and interventions (counseling, pharmacotherapy, nicotine replacement therapy).

Practice what you teach: a case study of ethical conduct in the academic setting.

Nursing faculty teach ethics and ethical behavior in undergraduate and graduate curriculum. In this article, a case study is presented that illustrates a breach of ethical behavior and conduct in the academic setting by both faculty and students. The decision-making process used to resolve this dilemma by the chair, the associate dean, and a faculty member relied on a dialectic approach that looked at philosophical underpinnings, historical background of nursing ethics, and university- and schoolwide policies and procedures.

Gender's effect on the efficacy of smoking cessation interventions.

Evidence-based guidelines and subsequent studies support the effectiveness of counselling and pharmacotherapy as first-line smoking cessation interventions. Gender is one of many factors that may have an impact on the efficacy of smoking cessation interventions. There is only very limited evidence, however, to answer the question of how gender influences the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions.

Caring for themselves: facilitators and barriers to women home care workers who are chronically ill following their care plan.

Compliance literature has paid little attention to the ability of patients to carry out their care plan. Indeed, throughout this literature, the voices of patients are disturbingly absent. In this paper, I report a study of compliance issues among women home care workers who were chronically ill.