Transforming Nurse Self-Care Through Integration of Spirituality: Lessons From an International Collaboration in Palliative Care.

Introduction: With growing evidence of compassion fatigue and burnout in health care, it is time for a deeper look at the vital practice of self-care among professionals providing palliative care. The purpose of this study was to provide insights into ways empowerment, caring for self, environment, and building relationships impact well-being among palliative care professionals.

Methods: Interpretative descriptive methods framed focus group interviews, conducted during a conference on palliative care integrative health practices held in Thailand.

Randomized single-blinded clinical trial on effects of nursery songs for infants and young children's anxiety before and during head computed tomography.

Objective: The objective of this clinical trial was to determine if an intervention of listening to nursery songs with integrated heartbeat sounds resulted in changes in anxiety levels in infants and children younger than 4 years in an emergent setting.

Methods: This is a randomized single-blinded controlled trial. The study included 62 children younger than 4 years who were deemed by the emergency physician to need a computed tomographic (CT) scan.

Creatively caring: effects of arts-based encounters on hospice caregivers in South Africa.

International literature and experience suggest that arts-based encounters can be effective in reducing stress and burnout in health care workers. Are these principles universal? Are they as applicable and effective in resource-constrained situations in Africa as in other parts of the world? We describe the impact of creative and arts-based encounters on a group of hospice caregivers at South Coast Hospice in KwaZulu Natal. An experienced facilitator built a caring and trusting relationship with the participants over a three month period through a variety of means, including a singing and songwriting intervention specifically designed to empower and give voice to the hospice caregivers, most of whom were Zulu women.

Stress reduction for nurses through Arts-in-Medicine at the University of New Mexico Hospitals.

Artists-in-medicine at the University of New Mexico help nurses remember and renew the values that originally attracted them to the field of nursing. Exploring their nascent creativity through massage, yoga, art, music, and writing, nurses are encouraged to reconnect emotionally and spiritually with themselves, their patients, and fellow healthcare workers.