Health Literacy and Health Status in People With Chronic Heart Failure.

Purpose/aim: The aim of this study was to investigate whether health literacy, self-efficacy, and medication adherence can explain or predict the variance in health outcomes (measured as perceived physical or mental health status [HS]) in persons with chronic heart failure (HF).

Design: A nonexperimental cross-sectional survey study used data gathered from 175 patients with chronic HF from urban cardiology practices in the northeast United States.

Methods: The Paasche-Orlow and Wolf Causal Pathways conceptual model and Bandura's self-efficacy theory were used to select and test variables in the study.

Identifying and Addressing Sources of Measurement Error in the Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire.

Background And Purpose: The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ) provides a rich portrait of one's perceived social support including network size/composition and quality of support. Analyses of quantitative research reports and critiques of the NSSQ revealed non-negligible measurement error. We document evidence of measurement error, report potential sources of this error, and present forthcoming psychometric testing.

Spiritual practice: a literature review related to spiritual health and health outcomes.

Spirituality and the expression of spirituality have received renewed interest in both nursing and nonnursing literature over the last 20 years. Scholars in spirituality studies have contributed to the wealth of both qualitative and quantitative data that exist. Spiritual practices that facilitate spiritual health are embedded within many nursing interventions.

Patients' perceptions of spirituality and the nurse as a spiritual care provider.

This qualitative study explored patients' perceptions of spirituality and of the nurse as a spiritual care provider. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 8 adults older than 21, who were living at home, and had been discharged from the hospital within the past 3 months having had at least a 5-day length of stay. Participants agreed that during their hospitalization, nurses were kind and caring but these behaviors were not perceived as spiritual care.