Nursing assessment of older people who are in hospital: exploring registered nurses' understanding of their assessment skills.

Background: Nurses worldwide are expected to take a leading role in caring for older people. Considerable literature dedicated to the range and application of assessment skills used by nurses vary. There is limited knowledge of registered nurses' (RNs) views of their assessment of older adults.

Problematising autonomy and advocacy in nursing.

Customarily patient advocacy is argued to be an essential part of nursing, and this is reinforced in contemporary nursing codes of conduct, as well as codes of ethics and competency standards governing practice. However, the role of the nurse as an advocate is not clearly understood. Autonomy is a key concept in understanding advocacy, but traditional views of individual autonomy can be argued as being outdated and misguided in nursing.

Exploring staff diabetes medication knowledge and practices in regional residential care: triangulation study.

Aims And Objectives: This study is drawn from a larger project that aimed to identify the staffing and organisational factors influencing the quality of diabetes care for older people living in residential care in regional Victoria, Australia. The focus of the current study is on medication management for residents with diabetes.

Background: With a continuous rise in diabetes in the population, there is an associated increase in the prevalence of diabetes in aged care residential settings.

Investigation of adaptation after liver transplantation using Roy's Adaptation Model.

In this study we explored the adaptation of transplant recipients in Turkey using the Roy Adaptation Model. A descriptive qualitative design was used with data collected from liver transplant recipients in either individual or group interviews between May 2009 and February 2010. Using deductive content analysis, four themes were identified in the data: physiological mode, self-concept mode, role function mode, and interdependence mode.

Quality of life in recipients before and after liver transplantation in Turkey.

Context: Liver transplantation has become the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage liver disease. Most studies show a positive effect on quality of life after liver transplantation, but most studies are based on data from Western countries and little is known about quality of life in liver transplant recipients in Turkey or other developing countries.

Objective: To investigate liver transplant recipients' quality of life and factors affecting it, before and 3 months after transplantation in western Turkey.

The impact of fatigue on daily activity in people with chronic kidney disease.

Aims And Objectives: To examine the impact of fatigue on the daily activity levels of people with chronic kidney disease, compare whether being predialysis or receiving different renal replacement therapies had any effect on fatigue and activity and identify whether any items in the fatigue severity scale were more predictive of daily activity levels.

Background: Chronic kidney disease is a complex and long-term disease where people commonly experience fatigue and reduced levels of fitness; both of which impact on an individual's ability to carry out routine activities of daily life.

Design: A descriptive cross-sectional design.

Are laboratories useful fiction? A comparison of Norwegian and Australian undergraduate nursing skills laboratories.

Drawing on the findings from studies in Australia and Norway that explored the use of laboratories in the preparation of nursing students for entry to practice, this article identifies the pedagogical challenges for the undergraduate education of nurses. The findings from both countries are compared and, in spite of distinct differences in the level of financial investment, there are striking similarities between the ways in which laboratories are used in the two countries. The laboratories were designed to predominately represent acute care hospital environments.

Perceptions of people with Type 2 diabetes about self-management and the efficacy of community based services.

Self-management has become a key strategy for managing the health care of people with diabetes. This study explored issues people with type 2 diabetes experienced in their self-management practices and access to regional community based services. Using a qualitative interpretative design data was collected from four participants who were interviews about their perceptions of facilitators, barriers and issues they encountered in their diabetes care in a regional setting.

Picture of Norwegian clinical learning laboratories for undergraduate nursing students.

Clinical preparation for practice is a vital part of undergraduate education in nursing. This study explored contemporary constructions of clinical skills laboratories in two nursing undergraduate programs in Norway using qualitative collective case study methods. Data were gathered using individual and group interviews and observation during site visits.

Mothering: an unacknowledged aspect of undergraduate clinical teachers' work in nursing.

Clinical education is an important component of undergraduate nurse education, in which clinical teachers facilitate students' application of theoretical classroom knowledge into the clinical practice setting. Mothering as part of clinical teachers' work was a major finding from a larger study exploring clinical teaching work to identify what shaped their work and barriers to their work in clinical settings. The study used semi-structured interviews, informed by the work of Foucault.

Levels of fatigue in people with ESRD living in far North Queensland.

Aim: Levels of fatigue as experienced by people with end stage renal disease (ESRD), were assessed using the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS).

Background: Fatigue, a common symptom reported by people with ESRD, is a multifaceted, subjective experience, which is readily understood by individuals but difficult to measure. There is limited understanding of the level of fatigue experienced by people with ESRD, with research currently limited to people treated with haemodialysis.

Issues in the provision of nursing care to people undergoing cardiac surgery who also have type 2 diabetes.

There has been little investigation of the issues associated with caring for patients presenting for cardiac surgery with a comorbid diagnosis of diabetes although there is some evidence that the diabetes management is suboptimal. This study aimed to identify issues that patients and cardiac specialist nurses experience with the provision of inpatient services for people undergoing cardiac surgery who also have type 2 diabetes. A qualitative interpretive design, using individual interviews with patients and nurses, provided data about some of these issues.

Juggling type 1 diabetes and pregnancy in rural Australia.

Objective: to explore the experiences of women with type 1 diabetes, living in rural Australia, while preparing for pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, we aimed to describe the women's engagement with, and expectations of, health-care providers during this period, and subsequently highlight potential service and informational gaps.

Design: qualitative research using a collective case-study design; seven women with type 1 diabetes who had given birth within the previous 12 months participated in in-depth interviews about their experiences of pregnancy and birth.

Exploring the use of clinical laboratories in undergraduate nursing programs in regional Australia.

Preparation for clinical practice is arguably a vital component of undergraduate nursing education with clinical laboratories widely adopted as a strategy to support student development of clinical skills. However, there is little empirical evidence about the role laboratories play in students' learning or how they assist in linking theory to practice. This study aimed to explore the current clinical laboratory practices in Schools of Nursing in regional Victoria, Australia through site visits, interviews and review of curricula.

Hearing what older consumers say about participation in their care.

A study exploring older people's participation in their care in acute hospital settings reveals both consumers' and nurses' views of participation. Using a critical ethnographic design, data were collected through participant observation and interviews from consumers in acute care settings who were over 70 years old and nurses who were caring from them. Thematic analysis identified that older people equated participation with being independent.

Assessment of learning in contemporary nurse education: Do we need standardised examination for nurse registration?

In Australia and Norway final examinations to determine eligibility for registration as a nurse were discontinued during the period when nurse education moved into the higher education sector. In response to recent calls for the reintroduction of final examinations we explore the range of knowledge needs for the practice of nursing. These various forms of knowledge demand different forms of mediation and acquisition as well as assessment.

Development and validation of the Human Activity Profile into Chinese language: lessons in determining equivalence.

The Human Activity Profile (HAP), and associated Dyspnea Scale, is a self-report instrument for assessing levels of human activity. Although it has been used in studies examining the levels of activity in people, it is limited to people who are only able to understand English. However, many countries are multicultural with significant numbers of people whose native language is not English.

The phenomenon of presence within contemporary nursing practice: a literature review.

Nursing practice underpinned by humanistic values may promote presence experiences within nurse-patient interactions. These interactions are powerful and beneficial both to nurse and patient. However, the phenomenon of presence is surrounded by competing and confused definitions.

Discursive influences on clinical teaching in Australian undergraduate nursing programs.

Clinical teaching is a vital, yet multidimensional component of Australian undergraduate nursing courses. Unlike other parts of curricula, clinical teaching relies on the both higher education and health care sectors to meet prescribed goals and for effective student learning to occur. As such it is influenced by discourses from within both education and health.

Consumer participation in acute care settings: an Australian experience.

Consumer partnerships have been embraced as an important component of building high quality health care services. While nurses have the greatest contact with clients in hospital, little is known of their views about consumer participation or how they facilitate that participation at the bedside. Using focus group interviews and participant observation methods, this project explored nurses' approaches to working with consumers to support their participation in health care delivery.

Influences of spatial practices on pressure ulcer management in the context of spinal cord injury.

Nursing practice is significantly influenced by the type and use of space in which nursing is practised. While investigating current patterns of service delivery for the management of pressure ulcers from the perspective of people with spinal cord injuries and their families, the space in which care was delivered was identified as a central determinant of care. Qualitative methods were used to investigate consumer perspectives among patients residing in both metropolitan and rural communities who had been hospitalized for the management of pressure ulcers.