Preventing Peer Violence Against Children: Methods and Baseline Data of a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Pakistan.

Background: Violence against and among children is a global public health problem that annually affects 50% of youth worldwide with major impacts on child development, education, and health including increased probability of major causes of morbidity and mortality in adulthood. It is also associated with the experience of and perpetration of later violence against women. The aim of this article is to describe the intervention, study design, methods, and baseline findings of a cluster randomized controlled trial underway in Pakistan to evaluate a school-based play intervention aiming to reduce peer violence and enhance mental health.

Intimate Partner Violence: The Lived Experience of Single Women.

Research in intimate partner violence has focused on married, cohabiting, adolescents, or college aged women. The experience of intimate partner violence by single women has not been studied separately from other groups of women. An interpretive phenomenological approach was used with feminist inquiry to gain insight into the experience of intimate partner violence by single women.

Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Adolescents Entering Child Protective Services.

Study Objective: Persons aged 15-24 years have the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Adolescents in protective services custody may be at even greater risk of acquiring STIs, but little is known about the prevalence of STIs among this population. We therefore set out to assess the prevalence of STIs among adolescents seen in the Harris County Child Protective Services Clinic.

Reproductive Life Planning: A Concept Analysis.

Background: In 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued 10 recommendations on preconception care, which included the statement that reproductive life planning should be considered an individual's responsibility across his or her life span.

Predictors and outcomes of community agency use in abused mothers.

Objective: To identify characteristics of abused mothers that predict use and difficulty of use of community agencies for intimate partner violence (IPV) and to describe the outcomes of community agency use.

Design And Sample: A prospective study design was used. Three hundred mothers who had experienced physical or sexual IPV and were seeking services for the first time at either a safe shelter for abused women or applying for a protection order.

Reliability and validity of an instrument to measure the beliefs of intrapartum nurses.

Intrapartum nurses assume a central role in the birth process and make decisions driven by a set of beliefs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure birth beliefs of intrapartum nurses related to birth practice. A total of 313 intrapartum nurses accessed this online, self-administered instrument over a 3-month period.

Hiring a nurse practitioner: What's in it for the physician?

A solution to the increased demand for primary care providers is to hire a nurse practitioner (NP). Hiring an NP in a primary care practice has numerous advantages for physicians. This article will discuss those advantages and clarify perceived disadvantages to hiring an NP in the primary care setting.

Fostering completion of the doctor of philosophy degree through scholarly collegial support.

The doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree in nursing science prepares nurses to be scientists through a rigorous program of scholarship and research. Nurses who complete this degree are recognized globally as researchers who are expected to pursue a career of intellectual inquiry. Today, the internationally small cohort of PhD-prepared nurses contributes empirically to the generation and development of nursing science.

Interruptions and distractions during anesthesia induction: a pilot study.

Usually, the circulating registered nurse assists with anesthesia induction, but other personnel tend to interrupt the process to ask questions that are unrelated to the induction process. Interruptions and distractions can lead to loss of focus and result in medication errors if a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) swaps syringes during anesthesia induction. In this study, 8 CRNAs and cycles of anesthesia induction were observed, and the number of interruptions and distractions recorded.

An integrative review of expert nursing practice.

Purpose: To review relevant literature on expert practice in nursing to assess common characteristics across the breadth of nursing specialties and work settings.

Organizing Construct: An integrative literature search was conducted with inclusion criteria: (a) primary studies of how clinical staff nurses develop and demonstrate expert practice; (b) subjects from variety of specialties, employment settings, and countries of origin; and (c) studies of clinical staff nurses and not nurses in advanced practice roles.

Methods: Literature published between 1996 and 2009 was reviewed using MEDLINE and the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) using the key words "nursing,""expert," and "practice.

Case study of an intervention to enhance maternal sensitivity in adolescent mothers.

The purpose of this case study was to examine the efficacy of a teen parenting home intervention on maternal sensitivity in one teen mother/infant dyad by exploring the changes from pre- to postintervention in parenting stress, depression, and social support, all of which influence maternal sensitivity. Levels in all four variables of interest changed postintervention as predicted. Assessment and intervention related to maternal sensitivity should be incorporated into care of adolescent mothers in all settings.

Best practice guidelines for the nurse practitioner regarding screening, prevention, and management of postpartum depression.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design a means to educate the registered nurse or nurse practitioner on epidemiology, signs and symptoms, risk factors, screening tools, management, and complications that can occur with delayed diagnosis of postpartum depression. A decision tree was also developed to help the registered nurse or nurse practitioner understand the best clinical practice guidelines regarding the best screening tool to use, when the tool should be used, and management of patients identified with postpartum depression.

Results: Best practice guidelines were developed from the literature review.

EBP partners: doctoral students and practicing clinicians bridging the theory-practice gap.

The theory-practice gap is one component of the barriers to implementing evidence-based practice. Texas Woman's University College of Nursing and Presbyterian Hospital of Denton joined forces to bridge this gap, allowing doctoral students to provide educational offerings to practicing nurses. Through a Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need grant, doctoral students completed supervised teaching practicums at the hospital, assisting the hospital to implement evidence-based practice with the ultimate goal of applying for Magnet status.

Using nonfaculty registered nurses to facilitate high-fidelity human patient simulation activities.

Maximizing faculty resources using nonfaculty registered nurses to supervise high-fidelity human-patient simulation is an innovative strategy for addressing the nursing faculty shortage and preparing graduates to practice safely in hospitals. The authors describe their use of nonfaculty registered nurses and its outcomes.

Children aged 6 to 60 months in Nepal may require a vitamin A supplement regardless of dietary intake from plant an animal food sources.

The purpose of this survey was to explore the relationship between the prevalence of the health indicators of malnutrition, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infection and the consumption of vitamin A-rich food and the supplementation status of three groups of children in Nepal (supplemented, supplemented only once, and never supplemented). A trained female community health worker interviewed mothers about vitamin A-rich food feeding practices to children aged 6 to 60 months using a standardized questionnaire and then estimated the nutritional status of the children using mid-upper-arm circumference measurements and recording the incidence of diarrhea and acute respiratory infection from mothers' interviews. Regardless of the amount of vitamin A-rich foods consumed, children who were regularly supplemented with high doses of vitamin A were protected against malnutrition, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infection at a higher rate than children who were supplemented only once or were never supplemented.

Relationships among personal space boundaries, peer acceptance, and peer reputation in adolescents.

Problem: Peer relationships are important to the health of adolescents who are at a developmental period of moving from parental influence to potentially dangerous peer influence. Interpersonal communication processes are logical antecedents of peer relationships. However, research in this area with adolescent populations is limited.

Increasing the safety-promoting behaviors of abused women.

Despite an epidemic of intimate-partner violence against women, and general agreement that women should be screened for it, few assessment and intervention protocols have been evaluated in controlled studies. To test a telephone intervention intended to increase the "safety-promoting behavior" of abused women, 75 women received six telephone calls over a period of eight weeks in which safety-promoting behaviors were discussed. A control group of 75 women received usual care.

Vitamin A supplementation and health outcomes for children in Nepal.

Purpose: To compare vitamin A supplementation status of children age 6-60 months to the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency disease, malnutrition, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infection.

Methods: The nutritional status of children was estimated using mid-upper-arm circumference measurements. A trained ophthalmology assistant assessed for clinical signs of vitamin A deficiency disease.

Implementation of the essential elements of service learning in three nursing courses.

The students' creativity, enthusiasm, energy, and excellent planning skills made a tremendously positive impression on the community agencies that participated in this project. The students applied principles of: Epidemiology, including collecting meaningful descriptive data. Community and family intervention.