A creative-bonding intervention and a friendly visit approach to promote nursing students' self-transcendence and positive attitudes toward elders: a pilot study.

Nursing students' disinterest in caring for elders presents health care challenges. As the aged population increases, nursing faculty are challenged to improve students' attitudes toward elder care. Reed's self-transcendence theory guided this pilot study with nursing students (n=22) who implemented either a Creative-Bonding Intervention (CBI) or a Friendly Visit (FV) at senior citizen centers to test the effect of creative approaches on student self-transcendence and attitudes toward elders.

Establishing a method for tracking persistence rates of nursing students: one school's experience.

The national nursing shortage is challenging schools and policymakers to develop strategies to increase the number of registered nurses. A tracking system that reports retention rates can provide a critical measure of a school's effectiveness and can assist decision makers in prioritizing where it is best to spend private and public dollars. It can also support a school's efforts to engage in continuous quality-improvement activities.

Language adaptation and testing of the Prostate Health Questionnaire for Jamaican and Haitian men.

A convenience sample of Jamaican and Haitian men completed the translated versions of the Prostate Health Questionnaire. The findings support that the translated survey is comprehensible, has internal consistency, and is reliable over time when used for these populations.

Lowering stress while teaching research: a creative arts intervention in the classroom.

Undergraduate students often request "hands-on" research experience but seldom have the time and opportunity during a one-semester introductory course to participate in such a project. The purposes of this educational approach, implemented during a beginning research class for baccalaureate nursing students, were to provide an opportunity for students to participate in an experimental research study, and test the effect of a creative arts intervention on students' stress, anxiety, and emotions. Students designed, participated in, and analyzed the results of the project.

Testing the efficacy of a creative-arts intervention with family caregivers of patients with cancer.

Purpose: To test the efficacy of a creative arts intervention (CAI) with family caregivers of patients with cancer.

Design: A pre-posttest quasi-experimental design, with participation in the CAI as the independent variable and stress, anxiety, and emotions as the dependent variables.

Method: The 6-month study was implemented at a regional cancer treatment center with family caregivers.

Individual telephone support for family caregivers of seriously ill cancer patients.

Medical-surgical nurses are an important source of information and guidance for family caregivers during health care crises. The concerns expressed by family caregivers to nurse interventionists during a supportive and informational telephone intervention are described in this study. An analysis of telephone call content using constant comparison methods identified major stressors of the family caregiver during the illness trajectory.

Nurse practitioners' behavior regarding teaching testicular self-examination.

Purpose: To test a model derived from the theory of reasoned action and to determine the behavior of nurse practitioners (NPs) regarding teaching testicular self-examination (TSE).

Data Sources: A cross-sectional, explanatory design was used to survey a random sample of 1,490 members of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Conclusions: NPs had positive attitudes toward teaching TSE and were engaged in such teaching.

Telephone support for caregivers of patients with cancer.

Caregivers have complex needs as they care for a loved one with cancer at the end of life. The objective of this pilot study was to determine the feasibility of conducting a brief telephone intervention, Tele-Care II, for caregivers of hospice patients. Guided by Hogan's Model of Bereavement, nurse interventionists implemented Tele-Care II via teleconference calls with caregivers.

Health seeking behaviors of Haitian families for their school aged children.

Providing culturally sensitive health care to diverse groups would be enhanced by better understanding of their experiences with the health care system and perceptions of health and illness. Haitians comprise an immigrant group that has increased dramatically in the United States over the past three decades. The purposes of this study were to identify the health seeking behaviors of Haitian parents for their school-aged children and the barriers they experienced in obtaining health care services.

Nursing care of patients with gastrointestinal cancer: a staff development approach.

This article discusses how staff development educators can conduct an innovative class for nurses caring for patients with gastrointestinal cancer. The nurse's role in caring for these patients includes knowledge of the pathophysiology, risk factors, detection methods, signs and symptoms, treatments, conventional and integrative holistic nursing interventions, and community resources. However, consideration should be given to the total learning experience rather than technical skills alone.

The pleasure of your company: attitudes and opinions of preceptors toward nurse practitioner preceptees.

Purpose: To survey the attitudes and opinions of preceptors about their experiences with nurse practitioner students.

Data Sources: Original research using a mailed questionnaire designed by the researchers to 196 physician and nurse practitioner preceptors (23% response rate).

Conclusions: Preceptors desired faculty support and feedback, wanted involvement in shaping the curriculum, and had strong opinions about the precepting experience.

NCLEX-RN strategies for success: a private university's experience.

Our university is committed to teaching excellence and effective student learning. To demonstrate this effectiveness, our school of nursing conducted a pilot study to assess the status of student learning through documented success on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). Recognizing that recommendations on NCLEX-RN test plan development and revisions are based on results of the triennial RN job analysis study, it became apparent to faculty for the need to identify and enhance nursing skills a student should be able to perform at the entry level of a newly licensed registered nurse.

A phenomenologic study of how perioperative nurses perceive their work world.

As health care facilities restructure and downsize, many are evaluating the value of RNs as members of the health care team. While many studies have been done about how health care systems measure value, no studies have been found that focus on areas of concern from the perspective of nurses who actually work in the OR. This article details the results of a phenomenologic study that used one-on-one interviews to ask five perioperative nurses how they perceive their work world.

Continuous quality improvement project: decreasing the potential for the development in the inpatient setting of drug resistance by improving nursing practice for HAART administration.

HIV/AIDS patients' dissatisfaction with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) medication administration in the inpatient setting was the impetus for a continuous quality improvement (CQI) project. The purpose of the CQI project was to initiate a change in nursing practice for HAART medication administration. The goal of the project was to decrease the potential for development of drug resistance in the inpatient setting related to nonadherence with food requirements for drug administration and to incomplete or "missed" doses of prescribed HAART.