The role of qualitative research in understanding diabetic foot ulcers and amputation.

Purpose: To enhance the learner's competence with knowledge about using qualitative methodologies to understand diabetic foot ulcers and amputations.

Target Audience: This continuing education activity is intended for physicians and nurses with an interest in skin and wound care.

Objectives: After participating in this educational activity, the participant should be better able to:1.

Stories of women involved in a postpartum depression peer support group.

Living through postpartum depression (PPD) might lead women to seek a variety of support to re-establish their well-being, including a hybrid of traditional and non-traditional services. Within this mix, some women participate in peer groups; however, there is a paucity of research regarding their subjective experiences of engaging in this type of support. The purpose of this study was to describe how women talked about living through PPD in the context of a peer support group.

Implications of multiple-choice testing in nursing education.

The evaluation of knowledge/competence is understood as an essential component of nursing education and practice. As such, nurse educators have a plethora of existing evaluation strategies from which to choose. A common written evaluative format used across all higher education settings is multiple-choice testing.

A description of a process to calibrate the Morse fall scale in a long-term care home.

The purpose of this article is to describe the process of calibrating the Morse Fall Scale in a Canadian long-term care home as one aspect of a complex fall prevention program. The authors propose that the implementation of a calibration process of a fall risk assessment tool enables care providers to identify residents at greatest risk for falling. The authors further suggest that the ability to identify those residents most likely to experience a fall facilitates tailoring of fall prevention strategies for these individuals at greatest risk.

The novice objective structured clinical evaluation tool: psychometric testing.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study of the psychometric properties of the Novice Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation Tool.

Background: A collaborative undergraduate nursing programme is currently using an objective structured clinical evaluation at the conclusion of the first nursing clinical course to determine student competence as a component of quality and safety education. However, the reliability and validity of the assessment tool has not been established.

Homelessness, a state of mind?: a discourse analysis.

This article presents a discourse analysis of a woman's written account of mental illness and homelessness. In her preparation as a co-presenter at a conference for decision- and policy-makers, Anna wrote eight distinct drafts of her speaking notes; each time emphasizing different aspects of her experiences with mental illness and homelessness. By sharing her preparatory writings, Anna offers a rare insight into the 'evolution' of the thinking that went into representing her story to an audience of professionals.

Objective structured clinical evaluation of clinical competence: an integrative review.

Aim: This paper presents an integrative literature review conducted to describe the utility of the objective structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) as a strategy of measuring one form of clinical competence in nursing.

Background: The emergence of the OSCE, one form of evaluation of clinical competence used in medicine, is gaining more scrutiny and consideration in nursing education.

Data Sources: The review was conducted through an initial search of computerized databases CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Academic Search Premier and MEDLINE for the period from 1960 to 2008.

COPD stories of complex causal 'truths' 'Sure I've smoked all my life/but I also put in 37 years at the mine'.

Aims And Objectives: Secondary analysis was conducted to interpret the causes of illness stories told by patients living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background: Despite the abundance of quantitative evidence regarding the causal relationship between smoking and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, there is limited research that provides a contextual emic understanding of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease aetiology.

Design: Interview data from two earlier focused ethnography studies were examined by retrospective interpretation, a type of secondary qualitative research.

Supported housing programs for persons with serious mental illness in rural northern communities: a mixed method evaluation.

Background: During the past two decades, consumers, providers and policy makers have recognized the role of supported housing intervention for persons diagnosed with serious mental illness (SMI) to be able to live independently in the community. Much of supported housing research to date, however, has been conducted in large urban centers rather than northern and rural communities. Northern conditional and contextual issues such as rural poverty, lack of accessible mental health services, small or non-existing housing markets, lack of a continuum of support or housing services, and in some communities, a poor quality of housing challenge the viability of effective supported housing services.

Representations of disability in nursing and healthcare literature: an integrative review.

Aim: This paper is a report of an integrative review to explore the way in which disability has been considered in the multidisciplinary health and nursing literature.

Background: In the multidisciplinary health and nursing literature, two ways are presented in which disability can be understood: the traditional, functional perspective and a more contemporary, social perspective.

Data Sources: Computerized databases of the CINAHL, Proquest Nursing and Allied Health Sources, EBSCO and Evidence Based Medicine Reviews Multifile and Cochrane databases were conducted for papers published in English in the period 1963-2007 using the keywords 'models of disability', 'disability and nursing research' and 'theories of disability'.

COPD-intuition or template: nurses' stories of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Unlabelled: STUDY RATIONAL: A number of nurse-researchers have examined the experience of dyspnoea reduction during non-acute phases of the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, nurses working on in-patient hospital units are frequently required to care for individuals suffering from acute exacerbations of their disease (AECOPD). These critically ill individuals present at health care institutions incapacitated by severe shortness of breath/dyspnoea that is frequently refractory to treatment.

The dyspnea-anxiety-dyspnea cycle--COPD patients' stories of breathlessness: "It's scary /when you can't breathe".

Dyspnea, the major symptom associated with acute exacerbation events of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), is a subjective experience. Extensive research has been done on the pathophysiology and affective components of dyspnea; however, the precise physical mechanism of breathlessness remains elusive. One purpose of this narrative research was to explore the affective component of dyspnea/anxiety as described by patients living with COPD characterized by acute illness events.

Storytelling and the interpretation of meaning in qualitative research.

Aim: This paper reviews literature on narrative analysis and illustrates the meaning-making function of stories of chronic illness through analysis and discussion of two case studies from a study of acute episodes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Background: Individuals living with COPD experience acute exacerbations characterized by extreme dyspnea, but there has been little research to provide understanding of these events from the perspectives of individuals with COPD, family caregivers, and nurses. Narrative analysis -- considered in the context of the aims of qualitative research -- illuminates how these people make sense of acute exacerbation events by telling stories.