Political astuteness of baccalaureate nursing students following an active learning experience in health policy.

Objectives: To describe changes in political astuteness after baccalaureate nursing student participation in a series of public policy learning activities.

Design And Sample: This one-group pretest/posttest design included 300 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in the public/community health nursing course. Data collection occurred each semester beginning spring 2008 and ending summer 2011.

Social exchange as a framework for client-nurse interaction during public health nursing maternal-child home visits.

The purpose of this paper was to develop a nursing-focused use of social exchange theory within the context of maternal-child home visiting. The nature of social exchange theory, its application to client-nurse interaction, and its fit with an existing data set from a field research investigation were examined. Resources exchanged between the nurse and clients were categorized and compared across the patterns of home visiting, nursing strategies based on exchange notions were identified, and variations in exchange were linked with client outcomes.

An active learning experience in health policy for baccalaureate nursing students.

Nurses have the potential to promote the public's health through active involvement in shaping health and social policy. Preparing nursing students to influence public policy is a major component of the curriculum in public/community health nursing. A series of learning experiences was designed to engage students in this process.