The aim was to examine the potential of outdoor contexts within community-based rehabilitation to empower people with disabilities in their rehabilitation. Interpretive description was applied as the methodology in a 5-month ethnographic fieldwork study, and guided by social practice theory. In total, 115 people with disabilities were included for participant observation, of which 15 participants were recruited for individual walking interviews.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs part of a participatory action research (PAR) study, nursing student participants collaborated with faculty, along with older adults, people with mixed abilities, and preschool aged children in order to 'sow the seeds of social change' and grow a campus community gardening project. The focus of this article is on the community-engaged pedagogy within a community health nursing practice course that supported student learning. Insights were gleaned over the course of four academic semesters (and four student cohort groups) with students as co-developers of the campus-community garden and participants in the PAR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Qual Stud Health Well-being
December 2020
Mental health is central to overall wellbeing and, for students attending university, mental health is critical for learning and academic success. A wealth of research has focused on young people who experience psychosocial declines during academic and developmental transitions, but little is known about how young people flourish in this transition. The first to explore the experiences of flourishing among first-year Canadian university students making the transition directly from high school, this study sought to develop an understanding of: 1) , and 2) .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNurses' experiences in, and the overall effectiveness of, widely used alternative-to-discipline programs to manage nurses' substance-use problems have not been adequately scrutinized. We uncovered the conflicted official and experiential ways of knowing one such alternative-to-discipline program in a Canadian province. We explicated this conflict through an institutional ethnography analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAfter a recent sexual assault, clients in rural and remote communities do not typically receive comprehensive services. They experience delays with staff shortages and unfamiliarity with procedures, negative responses to disclosure such as disbelief, and may be turned away or required to travel elsewhere away from their support systems. These experiences increase their risks for mental health disorders and chronic diseases, placing a significant burden on the client's health and on the community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite unprecedented global environmental changes with widespread health effects, and rapid advances in nursing knowledge and education, the concept of environment within the discipline remains restricted. Environmental health continues to be marginalized in nursing education and practice, with nurses struggling to get beyond the slogans to arrive at practical applications. Framed by ecohealth and radical ecopsychology theory (concerned with nature connection, individual wellness, and social/earth justice), this study employed an online survey ( = 40) with thematic content analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlob Qual Nurs Res
November 2018
We undertook an institutional ethnography utilizing the expert knowledge of nurses who have experienced substance-use problems to discover: (a) What are the discourses embedded in the talk among nurses in their everyday work worlds that socially organize their substance-use practices and (b) how do those discourses manage these activities? Data collection included interviews, researcher reflexivity, and texts that were critically analyzed with a focus on institutional features. Analysis revealed dominant moralistic and individuated discourses in nurses' workplace talk that socially organized their substance-use practices, subordinated and silenced experiences of work stress, and erased employers' roles in managing working conditions. Conclusions included that nurses used substances in ways that enabled them to remain silent and keep working.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe strategy of mnemonics has long been used as an aid to learning biology, physiology, pathophysiology, and health assessment in nursing. An application of an alphabetical mnemonics strategy to teaching and learning nursing processes and constructing care plans has been explored for patients with increased intracranial pressure (ICP), hepatic failure, and chronic renal failure. A specific application of this strategy for teaching care planning for patients with ICP is described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Scholarship about communities of practice (COP) is uncovering evidence that interactivity between community members contributes to improvement in practice. Leadership and facilitation are crucial elements of successful COP implementation. The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative COP facilitator's course and report on the experiences of participants in the first course.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Although exposure to, and interaction with, natural environments are recognized as health-promoting, little is understood about the use of nature contact in treatment and rehabilitation for cancer survivors.
Methods: This narrative review summarizes the literature exploring the influence of nature-based experiences on survivor health. Key databases included CINAHL, EMBASE, Medline, Web of Science, PubMed, PsycArticles, ProQuest, and Cancerlit databases.
This article describes the implementation of an innovative research literacy teaching-learning activity. The Research in Practice Challenge activity promoted the importance and relevance of evidence-based practice with second-year nursing students in an undergraduate research course. Students appraised the evidence within policies and practice guidelines identified by managers in practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGrounded theory research provides the foundation for this case analy sis about listening to the voices of refugee immigrant women in order to improve access to health care. The authors share the case study of "Elena" (pseudonym), a Latin American refugee immigrant to Canada, and explore listening as an individual and collective intervention. The feeling of being degraded, ignored or dismissed by others has serious consequences for refugee immigrants to Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCan J Commun Ment Health
October 2005
This paper draws on experiences and research in mental health and international development to explore a dominant "World Mental Health" discourse. This kind of analysis provides a starting place to examine the critiques and ongoing theorizing of a global mental health ideology. Seeing the field as it is socially organized (Smith, 1987, 1990a, 1999) necessitates an understanding of how an ideological "World Mental Health" is discursively arranged as part of a global undertaking to decrease poverty and increase capitalist productivity and trade.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis feminist phenomenological study explores the meaning of older women's experiences as they negotiate health care. Several interviews with diverse groups of older women (immigrant, First Nations, and Japanese-Canadian women and those involved in community and social clubs) reveal that negotiating to have their health needs met was a challenging process requiring mutual support. Their health-care experiences were influenced by issues surrounding access to services, power, and poverty.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis institutional ethnographic work uses the first author's experience as an international development worker, educator, and community mental health nurse in West Africa to illustrate how official research and policy on mental health services reflect Western academic, corporate, economic, and cultural dominance. Focusing on a critical textual analysis of a survey intended to support funding applications to international aid/lending agencies, the authors show how official processes privilege Western policies/research approaches and subordinate local perspectives. If nurses, researchers, and policy-makers are to be effective in carrying out development work in Africa, they must learn to appreciate the subtle exertion of dominance inherent in Western approaches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis ethnographic study explored the health-related concerns, within dating relationships, of 40 female adolescents aged 15 and 16. The results reveal a complex interaction of male/female relational dynamics and socialization processes in these relationships. To avoid behaviours risky to their health, participants had to negotiate power relationships with partners and peers; yet, paradoxically, any increase in their power could increase the threat of violent confrontation, loss of power, and further health compromises.
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