Cultivating Self-Compassion to Protect Nurses From Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress.

Nursing burnout, a result of prolonged occupational stress, has always been a challenge in health care, but recently the COVID-19 pandemic made this issue into a national priority. In fact, burnout among health care workers is one of the four priorities of the U.S.

Nursing Students with Disabilities: A Guide to Providing Accommodations.

The number of nursing students with disabilities entering nursing school continues to rise along with the critical need for nurses. According to federal law, accommodations must be implemented in the classroom and clinical area for nursing students with disabilities. Faculty and administrators must protect the civil rights of those with disabilities by addressing barriers to student success and establishing accommodations.

Proposed Mechanism of Adherence in Caregivers Providing Care to Adults Living with a Left Ventricular Assist Device.

The left ventricular assist device (VAD) is commonly used as the bridge-to-transplantation therapy for heart failure patients who are on waitlist of heart transplant. The caregivers' adherence to the homecare regimen plays a vital role in patient outcomes. There is little evidence about the factors related to the caregiver adherence.

A competency roadmap for advanced practice nursing education using PRIME-NP.

Background: Clinical competency validation is essential for nurse practitioner (NP) education and public accountability. While there has been robust discussion around what constitutes clinical competency and assessment, clear and consistent definitions and measurements remain elusive.

Purpose: This article describes the PRIME-NP clinical competency model that is scalable, reproducible and accurately documents NP student competency across clinical courses.

Advance Directives for Adolescents and Young Adults Living With Neuromuscular Disease: An Integrative Review of the Literature.

The use of advance directives is an important component in helping individuals living with chronic and/or life-threatening illnesses establish goals of care and make decisions regarding care at the end of life. Advance care planning may help achieve enhanced health outcomes, yet it is not routinely offered to adolescents/young adults living with neuromuscular disease. An integrative review of the literature was conducted to examine the evidence related to the use of advance directives with adolescents/young adults living with neuromuscular disease and to identify reasons why they are not being used and how this can be improved.

Sleep quality and depression in adults with durable left-ventricular assist devices.

Poor sleep quality and depression remain understudied in patients implanted with a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD). This study aimed at describing sleep quality and depression pre and 6 months post LVAD implantation, examining the change in sleep quality and depression over time, and exploring the relationships among sleep quality and depression. An observational research design was used in this study involving 23 patients with LVADs.

Is it time for the 4th P in nurse practitioner education? Physical assessment, pharmacology, pathophysiology, and procedures: A systematic review.

Background And Purpose: Nurse practitioners (NPs) perform diagnostic and clinical procedure skills in the acute, specialty, urgent, and primary care settings. Nurse practitioners surveyed on readiness for practice report a lack of confidence and education preparation for performing selected advanced diagnostic and skills. As NPs gain independent, full practice scope, it is imperative advanced diagnostic and procedure skills used in practice are taught in nurse practitioner curriculum.

Women Veterans, a Population at Risk for Fibromyalgia: The Associations Between Fibromyalgia, Symptoms, and Quality of Life.

Background: The Institute of Federal Health Care recently published an executive summary from a round table discussion indicating that active duty and retired female military personnel are at high risk for adverse health outcomes unique to military service including complications related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unreported sexual trauma, and musculoskeletal problems. In 2008, the Institute of Medicine began to review, evaluate, and summarize the literature on health outcomes in Gulf War-deployed and found sufficient evidence of a causal relationship with PTSD and suggestive evidence of an association with fibromyalgia (FM). This study examines the prevalence and impact of FM in women veterans and to explore the association between other comorbidities to improve risk differentiation for treatment and improve outcomes.

Evaluation of brief treatment of symptoms of psychological trauma among veterans residing in a homeless shelter by use of Accelerated Resolution Therapy.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent in both homeless and nonhomeless veterans.

Purpose: To examine unique characteristics of being homeless that may influence PTSD treatment completion and clinical success.

Methods: Twenty-three veterans who were homeless and residing in a homeless shelter, along with 94 veterans from the community, were enrolled to receive one to five sessions of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), an emerging trauma-focused therapy for symptoms of PTSD.

Depression in informal caregivers of persons with dementia.

Background: Worldwide, there are more than 35 million individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Many of these individuals are cared for at home by unpaid caregivers who often report high levels of depressive symptoms and depression. The majority of studies conducted to predict which caregivers are at risk for depression have examined non-modifiable risk factors.

Relationship among low cholesterol levels, depressive symptoms, aggression, hostility, and cynicism.

Background: Treatment guidelines for lipids have become increasingly more aggressive. However, naturally low or therapeutically reduced cholesterol levels may be associated with adverse psychological health symptoms, including depression, aggression, and hostility.

Objective: To examine relationships between low total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels and measures of psychosocial status among middle-aged adults.

Missing incidents in community-dwelling people with dementia: understanding how these dangerous events differ from dementia-related ‘wandering’ is critical to assessment, intervention, and prevention.

At every stage of dementia, people with the condition are at risk for both missing incidents, in which they are unattended and unable to navigate a safe return to their caregiver, and "wandering," a term often used to describe repetitive locomotion with patterns such as lapping or pacing. By understanding the differences between these two phenomena, nurses can teach caregivers how to anticipate and prevent missing incidents, which are not necessarily related to wandering. The authors differentiate missing incidents from wandering, describe personal characteristics that may influence the outcomes in missing incidents, and suggest strategies for preventing and responding to missing incidents.

Cognitive profile in persons with systolic and diastolic heart failure.

Persons with heart failure (HF) have four times the risk of having cognitive impairment compared with the general population and display different patterns of cognitive impairment. This secondary analysis of a published cross-sectional study of 90 community-dwelling adults examined the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores and HF differentiated as systolic and diastolic HF. Mean MoCA score was 22.