Factors influencing nursing professional identity development: A qualitative study.

This research focuses on approaches that best support nursing professional identity formation, particularly by providing the insights of nursing students in their own words. This report reflects qualitative phenomenological research on nursing professional development from the perspective of both associate degree and baccalaureate degree student nurses in their final semester of study and describes factors that support or detract from the experience of nursing professional identity development. Participants were guided through individual interviews using semi-structured interview questions and later invited to facilitated focus groups with other students to clarify and elaborate on previous comments.

Professional Identity in Graduating Nursing Students.

Background: This research examines the meaning of nursing professional identity development from the perspectives of both associate degree nursing students and baccalaureate degree nursing students in their final semester. It provides insight into the student's understanding of nursing professional identity and the factors students identified as supporting or detracting from it.

Method: Participants were guided through individual interviews using semistructured interview questions and later invited to focus groups with other students to clarify and elaborate on previous comments.

Lived experiences of new nurse graduates in critical access hospitals.

Background: Critical access hospitals (CAHs) may have less support for new hires than larger institutions, and are at risk for recruitment and retention issues.

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive, phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of new nurse graduates in the first year of employment in CAHs.

Methods: Thirteen first-year critical access hospital nurses were interviewed, representing 3 midwestern states.

"Sink or Swim": An Ethnographic Study of Nurse Educators in Academic Culture.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the cultural context of academic nurse educators through the use of ethnography.

Background: This cultural context has seldom been explored from the perspective of nursing faculty.

Method: Twelve interviews, followed by ethnographic data analysis, identified domains with related components describing this culture.

Show Your Stuff and Watch Your Tone: Nurses' Caring Behaviors.

Background: Although it is perceived as essential, documentation of caring behaviors executed by nurses is rarely done. To facilitate what is important to patients and their family members, we need to understand what behaviors are perceived as caring or not caring.

Objective: To explore perceptions of nurses' caring behaviors among intubated patients and their family members.

Discovery of unexpected pain in intubated and sedated patients.

Background: The perceptions of patients who are restrained and sedated while being treated with mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit are not well understood. The effectiveness of sedation used to aid in recovery and enhance comfort during intubation is unknown.

Objective: To explore the perceptions of patients who were intubated and receiving pain medication while sedated and restrained in the intensive care unit, in particular, their experience and their memories of the experience.

Do they really care? How trauma patients perceive nurses' caring behaviors.

Applying the theory of Nursing as Caring can help the nurse provide care that is perceived as caring by moderately to severely injured trauma patients. The Caring Behaviors Inventory was administered in a 1-to-1 interview format to hospitalized trauma patients in a level 2 trauma center. Nurses were positively perceived in their caring behaviors with some variation based on gender and ethnicity.

Transformative experiences for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disaster volunteers.

The massive destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 provided an opportunity for many volunteers to be involved with disaster relief work. Exposure to devastation and personal trauma can have long-lasting and sometimes detrimental effects on people providing help. This qualitative study explored the experience of volunteer relief workers who provided disaster relief services after the hurricanes.

"Helping them understand": nurses' caring behaviors as perceived by family members of trauma patients.

This qualitative study explored family members' perceptions of nurses' caring behaviors. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 family members of moderately to severely injured trauma patients cared for at a level II trauma center. The dominant behavior identified as being caring was explaining what was going on and interpreting medical jargon.

Anticipatory mourning: processes of expected loss in palliative care.

This qualitative study explored the retrospective perceptions of the anticipatory mourning experience of caregivers who had not received hospice services. Data revealed five major processes that were consistently described by informants: realization; caretaking; presence; finding meaning; and transitioning. Characteristics of each of these processes are described.