[Human capital vs. manpower: fostering a greater global perspective within the nursing profession in Taiwan].

Nursing today is an occupation greatly influenced and shaped by global standards and internationally recognized standard practices and requirements. Therefore, cultivating nursing capital and ensuring nursing manpower requires an international perspective. Nursing migration is currently a popular approach used by many developed countries to address domestic shortfalls in nursing manpower.

[Implementing the "last mile" program in new nurse clinical education].

The shortage of working nurses has made Taiwan's low nursing retention rate a critical issue in domestic healthcare. Main reasons for new nurses leaving their jobs include high pressure, overtime work, heavy workload, interpersonal relationship problems with colleagues, and inadequate support from administrators. In response, nursing educators designed the "last mile" program to improve the hands-on competence of nursing students with the goal of increasing post-graduation retention rates.

[Response of Taiwan nursing education to today's nursing shortage].

The shortage of nursing manpower has recently attracted significant attention from Taiwan society. Government efforts to improve the nursing practice environment have challenged the quality of current domestic nursing education. This article provides an overview of Taiwan nursing education in terms of its development under current nursing shortage conditions and in light of Taiwan's low birthrate, ageing society.

[Cultivating nursing core competencies in college students].

Departments of nursing in Taiwan junior colleges teach a comprehensive range of core competency skills; provide the healthcare system with entry level nursing professionals able to deliver complete care services; and help students prepare for and earn their nursing licenses. Framed by current junior college nursing department curricula and considerations of professional core competency, this paper examines the role of core nursing competencies in college education goals as they influence college curriculum design and clinical practicum programs. The achieved result should be a professional curriculum that incorporates general education, basic medical, and professional nursing elements that is capable of nurturing professional nursing school graduates able to execute their professional duties and earn the respect of patients, their families and society.

Hepatitis B immunity in adolescents and necessity for boost vaccination: 23 years after nationwide hepatitis B virus vaccination program in Taiwan.

The first universal hepatitis B vaccination program for newborns in the world was launched in Taiwan in July 1984. Most studies on the effectiveness of hepatitis B vaccination focused on the seroprevalence of HBs Ag among children under 14 years old. Only few studies focused on the seropositivity of anti-HBs among adolescents aged 15-18 years old.

Prevalence of obesity and its association with cardiovascular disease risk factors in adolescent girls from a college in central Taiwan.

Although obesity is associated with important hemodynamic disturbances, little data exists on population-wide cardiovascular risk factors in obese adolescent girls in Taiwan. This study measured the prevalence of overweight/obesity and related cardiovascular disease risk factors in adolescent females. This was a school-based survey of a representative sample of 291 females aged 15 and 18 years in a public college in Central Taiwan.

Using SERVQUAL to evaluate quality disconfirmation of nursing service in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of disconfirmation of the perceived quality of nursing services, and its relationship to patient's satisfaction, intent to return, and intent to recommend to others. The service dimensions were tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy, which were adopted from the Gap model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985). A total of 186 subjects was tested by a modified SERVQUAL (service quality) instrument.

SARS: Key factors in crisis management.

This study was conducted at a single hospital selected in Taipei during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak from March to July, 2003 in Taiwan. During this period of time, 104 SARS patients were admitted to the hospital. There were no negative reports related to the selected hospital despite its being located right in the center of an area struck by the epidemic.

Students' perceptions of effective and ineffective clinical instructors.

Clinical nursing faculty possess four categories of important qualities: professional competence, interpersonal relationship, personality characteristics, and teaching ability. The main purpose of this study was to understand of these four categories of qualities, which, taken together, was the main contributor to effectiveness differences among clinical nursing faculty. A total of 214 students from two nursing schools completed the questionnaire, using a 5-point Likert-type scale.

[A primary exploration of nursing practicum during epidemics of major contagious diseases].

The purpose of this article was to investigate the issues related to nursing students' clinical practicum when severe contagious diseases occur. Based on the concept that patient-benefit must come first, the authors suggested that nursing students should remain on duty even if there were an outbreak of a severe contagious disease. The authors also discussed relevant issues in terms of professional roles and the safety of the learning environment.

[Shedding light on chaos theory].

Gleick (1987) said that only three twentieth century scientific theories would be important enough to continue be of use in the twenty-first century: The Theory of Relativity, Quantum Theory, and Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory has become a craze which is being used to forge a new scientific system. It has also been extensively applied in a variety of professions.

Evaluating the service quality of undergraduate nursing education in Taiwan--using quality function deployment.

This study applies quality function deployment (QFD) techniques to evaluate the quality of service of undergraduate nursing education in Taiwan from the perspective of nursing students. Survey data from 560 undergraduate nursing students at four Taiwanese universities were subjected to QFD analysis in order to identify the quality characteristics most highly valued by students, the elements of educational service they consider most important and least important, and relationships/discrepancies between student quality requirements and institutional service elements. Results show that students value traditional elements of nursing education - clinical practice and lectures - more highly than recent additions such as computer-aided instruction and multimedia teaching.

Faculty's perceptions of humanistic teaching in nursing baccalaureate programs.

In an attempt to investigate faculty's perceptions of humanistic teaching in nursing baccalaureate programs, a qualitative study was conducted by interviewing 10 faculty members (including one dean, and five associate deans) who all had experience in teaching nursing baccalaureate students. The participants were from five universities located in the southwestern, southeastern, and southern parts of the USA. The data were collected from 6/28-7/12, 2002.

Concerns of hospitalized care from patients perspectives.

Nurses constantly face the need to provide patient care, both physical and psychological, within the health care arena. Nursing staff must have an understanding of the concerns and experiences of hospitalization, and the sensitivity to elicit the patient s own private language of health care needs. The purpose of the study was to examine the concerns of health care needs from patients point of view.