Developmental concepts of nicotine addiction.

Piagetian interviewing techniques were used to explore concepts of nicotine addiction among 96 children and adolescents aged between 5 and 17 years. Verbal probes elicited each subject's most sophisticated level of reasoning about smoking and addiction. Responses were scored using the six developmentally ordered categories of the Developmental Conceptions of Addiction scoring system.

Evidence for identifying children at risk for being overweight, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes in primary care.

Introduction: Practitioners have noted the escalating risk for children being overweight and having cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The purpose of this study was to apply current recommendations in examining children and to test an expanded model of assessment to predict risk.

Method: A nonexperimental descriptive design was applied at an academic nurse-managed clinic.

School nurses' support for bereaved students: a pilot study.

Children may have difficulty with schoolwork because of grief over the death of an important person in their lives. School nurses provide support to these children. This pilot study consisted of a Web-based survey completed by 6 school nurses in a 3-county area in Washington state.

A comparative study of postpartum depression in abused and non-abused women.

Because of a rise in postpartum depression (PPD), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently indicated a need for more studies of possible risk factors for PPD.

Practical management of patients with painful diabetic neuropathy.

Purpose: Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) has a significant impact on patients' quality of life, affecting sleep, mood, mobility, ability to work, interpersonal relationships, overall self-worth, and independence. The purpose of this article is to provide diabetes educators with current and essential tools for PDN assessment and management.

Methods: Medline and CINAHL database searches identified publications on the assessment and treatment of PDN.

Applying the psychoneuroimmunology framework to nursing research.

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) provides a distinct perspective regarding the interrelatedness of the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. PNI explicates the possible means by which behavior and emotion can influence immune function. Moreover, PNI explains the means by which the immune system affects the nervous system and affects psychological response.

The meaning of mealtimes: connection to the social world of the nursing home.

Food that reflects our family backgrounds is a source of comfort that can play an important part in recovery from illness or adaptation to the nursing home, especially for older individuals. However, no studies could be found that explored residents' perspectives on how their food and food service preferences are, or are not, met in nursing homes. This exploratory qualitative study examined dietary preferences acquired during the course of a lifetime, and the meaning of mealtimes to 20 nursing home residents, and attempted to connect that meaning with their social world.

Nursing: profession in peril.

The number of nursing faculty experienced and skilled in research and scholarship is declining because of retirement and insufficient numbers of new scholars entering academia. This trend, alone, puts the future development of the nursing profession at risk. In addition, the increasing expectations placed upon the existing professoriate in the teaching and essential institutional service arenas necessitated by this shortage limit both the time and energy of senior faculty who are most qualified to advance the profession.

Neural-immune interactions: implications for pain management in patients with low-back pain and sciatica.

Bidirectional communication between the immune system and the brain and the implications of this communication are emerging concepts in pain research. Although representing a small portion of the disc degeneration syndromes, lumbar herniated discs can cause significant symptoms that may persist even after surgical interventions. Evolving evidence demonstrates that proinflammatory cytokines are a key mediator in the process of disc degeneration as well as in the pain experienced by those afflicted with lumbar herniated discs.

Physician orders for life-sustaining treatment form: honoring end-of-life directives for nursing home residents.

Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form provides choices about end-of-life care and gives these choices the power of physician orders. The POLST form assures end-of-life choices can be implemented in all settings, from the home through the health-care continuum. The use of the POLST form was evaluated in a pilot study in nursing homes in two eastern Washington counties.

Sedation and comfort issues in the ventilated infant and child.

Intubated infants and children require optimal sedation and comfort measures. Key elements that ensure the provision of quality care for these patients include the use of pain, comfort, and sedation assessment tools; pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic strategies; and the inclusion of the patient and parents as part of the team. This article describes approaches for using sedation and ensuring comfort in these patients.

Resident coping strategies in the nursing home: an indicator of the need for dietary services change.

Inadequate food intake leading to malnutrition impacts up to 85% of nursing home residents. Malnutrition can result in compromised quality of life and lead to chronic disability, functional decline, increased health care utilization and costs, and death. This article examines organizational structure (Perrow, 1979) and person-environment fit (Lawton, 1982) as factors in nutritional care of nursing home residents.

Native American learning: an integrative model.

Cultural variations influence health care needs of individuals in various cultural groups. Oral tradition, dreams, and spirituality are important in the lives of many Native Americans. There are few Native American nurses, so health care is often provided to members of this group by nurses who have different cultural backgrounds and who may not understand pertinent history and cultural practices.

Application of the caring curriculum to education of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nursing students.

To increase work force diversity and decrease health disparities, students of color must be successful in nursing programs. Unfortunately, the literature describes numerous barriers to these students' success, originating in both the socioeconomic and cultural environment in which they live and work, and in schools of nursing. In this study, seven filmed interviews of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nurses were examined for barriers to educational success.

Homocysteine in a multi-ethnic sample of school-age children.

Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and other developed countries; arterial lesions that are precursors of disease begin during childhood. Homocysteine levels have been associated with cardiovascular disease rates in adults, but information about levels in and impact on children is limited, particularly among various ethnic groups. This study examined the cardiovascular risk factors of a multi-ethnic sample of 100 9-15 year-old Native American, Hispanic, White, and mixed race children in rural central Washington.

Comparing needed training with topics of interest among assisted-living providers.

The purpose of this article is to describe a quality improvement program developed for assisted-living facilities in Washington State and to compare needed training with topics of interest of care providers in these assisted-living facilities. No national educational and training minimum requirements exist for unlicensed personnel charged with caring for older adults in assisted-living facilities. Minimum requirements specified in individual states vary from no training to that required of nursing assistants in skilled nursing facilities.

Mentoring for research skill development.

The nursing shortage is significantly affecting the nursing academic environment. A self-perpetuating cycle of insufficient numbers of faculty with inadequate preparation for academia could lead to a profound decline in the nursing profession. Institutions often implement mentoring plans for new tenure track faculty, and the challenge is even greater in environments that are not research intensive.

"That spirit, that thing inside". Using qualitative research techniques to produce a recruitment film for Hispanic/Latino and American Indian students.

This article reports on the use of qualitative research methodology in producing a 23-minute recruitment film to attract Hispanic/Latino and American Indian students into a baccalaureate nursing program. The research question addressed in this pilot project was, "What is the meaning of the educational experience to Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nurses in the Yakima Valley of south central Washington State?" The conceptual development of the project, recruitment of interview participants, generation of interview protocol, data collection, and analysis are described and correlated to accepted qualitative research elements. Themes and patterns identified in participant interviews, the "findings" of the project, were used during the postproduction phase as guides for the story that unfolds in the film, which addresses the experience of being a nurse of color.

Physical examination for the occupational health nurse: skills update.

Physical examination is a critical element of any occupational health practice. When a physical examination is performed effectively, it can benefit both employer and the employee. The combination of the health history and physical examination provides a database for health surveillance, risk exposure, and disease prevention.

Learning patterns of online students.

The virtual explosion of online education has prompted questioning of the quality of the learning. In addition, the effect of online learning on learner outcomes is receiving scrutiny. In this study, online students became more independent and self-disciplined as learners.

A randomized pilot study of improving foot care in home health patients with diabetes.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of an educational intervention to improve patients' foot care knowledge, self-efficacy, and self-care practices.

Methods: A prospective, randomized, single center, 2-group design was used with a convenience sample of 40 home care patients from a Medicare-certified home health agency. Baseline measures of foot care knowledge, self-efficacy, and reported self-care practices were obtained at study entry and 6 weeks later to control for foot care interventions provided during routine home care services.