Cerebral and Peripheral Immune Cell Changes following Rodent Juvenile Traumatic Brain Injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of death and disability. TBI is associated with neuroinflammation, but temporal changes in immune and inflammatory signaling following TBI have not been fully elucidated. Furthermore, there have been no previous studies on changes in immune cell populations following TBI via the Closed Head Injury Model of Engineered Rotational Acceleration (CHIMERA).

The Nature of Nursing Competency in Simulation of Adult Medical-Surgical Nursing: Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Background And Purpose: Educators, employers, and regulatory agencies face substantive challenges in evaluating nursing competency. Evidence on what competency is and how to measure it can mitigate the challenges.

Methods: Participants ( = 67) completed three high-fidelity simulation tests.

Testing Nursing Competence: Validity and Reliability of the Nursing Performance Profile.

Background And Purpose: There is growing evidence that simulation testing is appropriate for assessing nursing competence. We compiled evidence on the validity and reliability of the Nursing Performance Profile (NPP) method for assessing competence.

Methods: Participants (N = 67) each completed 3 high-fidelity simulation tests; raters (N = 31) scored the videotaped tests using a 41-item competency rating instrument.

Measuring competence: collaboration for safety.

Few options are available to nursing regulatory boards for the evaluation of nursing competency in registered nurses who are reported for practice breakdown. To address this deficiency, the authors conducted funded research through collaboration between their respective institutions: a state nursing regulatory board, a community college nursing program, and a state university nursing program. Through this collaboration, a competency evaluation process that used high-fidelity simulation was developed and was called the nursing performance profile (NPP).

Preparing clinical preceptors to support nursing students in evidence-based practice.

Staff nurse preceptors contribute importantly to student learning and to academic program outcomes; however, academic-clinical partnerships can offer focused learning opportunities for preceptors as well. This study addressed different interest levels in evidence-based practice across clinical settings by testing the effectiveness of a workshop designed to increase preceptor knowledge and endorsement of evidence-based practice. Nurse preceptor participants (N = 160) recruited from seven hospitals during 2009 to 2011 had an average age of 43.

Pregnancy outcome and management of women with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator: a single centre experience.

Aims: With improved survival of patients with congenital and inherited heart disease, there is now a younger cohort of patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) for the prevention and treatment of ventricular dysrrhythmias. Young women with such disorders often wish to embark on pregnancy, but pregnancy outcome data for this group is sparse. We therefore evaluated pregnancy outcome in patients with heart disease and an ICD in situ.

Pregnancy outcome in women with congenital heart disease and residual haemodynamic lesions of the right ventricular outflow tract.

Aims: To determine pregnancy outcome and risk factors for adverse events in women with congenital heart disease (CHD) and residual haemodynamic right ventricular (RV) outflow tract (RVOT) lesions.

Methods And Results: Pregnancy outcome data for women with CHD and residual RVOT lesions have been recorded since 2001. There were 76 pregnancies in 47 women that continued beyond 24 weeks gestation.

Use of high intensity adjusted dose low molecular weight heparin in women with mechanical heart valves during pregnancy: a single-center experience.

The use of standard dose low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) to anticoagulate women with mechanical valves in pregnancy is associated with morbidity and mortality. We conducted a prospective audit of the use of adjusted dose high intensity LMWH in 12 pregnancies in 11 women with prosthetic heart valves. LMWH +/- low-dose aspirin was started at therapeutic-dose with monitoring of anti-Xa levels to achieve a target level of 1.