Therapeutic touch, dialogue, and women's experiences in breast cancer surgery.

The article describes the development of a nursing intervention based on the science of unitary human beings that has the potential to help women have more positive experiences during the time of breast cancer surgery. The intervention, therapeutic touch and dialogue, is expected to result in decreased state anxiety and postoperative pain and a more positive affect balance. It is recommended that nurses maintain objective anecdotal records of their experiences with therapeutic touch and dialogue and that future research include randomized controlled clinical trials as well as studies to explore therapeutic touch's mechanism of action.

Growing up with chronic illness: the experience of growing up with cystic fibrosis.

The article describes the experience of growing up with a chronic illness. A hermeneutic-phenomenologic design based on van Manen's technique and set in Watson's theory of human caring was used to explore the meaning of the experience for 10 adults with cystic fibrosis. Themes that emerged included being different, "dont't call me terminal," and will power and faith.

Spirituality and hope: nursing implications for people with HIV disease.

The article describes the historical influence of holistic nursing theorists on the integration of spirituality into nursing care. Assessment and interventions for spiritual distress are suggested based on the conceptual model for holistic nursing practice of Dossey and colleagues. Research concerning the influence of hope, a dimension of spirituality, on men with human immunodeficiency virus disease is reported.

Sparsely Connected, Hebbian Networks with Strikingly Large Storage Capacities.

Conspicuous problems confront the use of fully-connected networks (F-nets) in the construction of realistic partial models of biological memory. These problems include the high synaptic densities of F-nets, and the low information storage capacities of F-nets with simple, biologically realistic learning rules. Most auto-associative networks constructed with low connectivities have employed random projections of path length 1.

Density-dependent seasonal dynamics of blacklegged tick (Acari:Ixodidae) nymphs.

The midsummer seasonal decline in abundance of unfed Ixodes scapularis Say nymphs on experimental plots in New Jersey was density-dependent. Nymph density was manipulated on 9 plots (10 by 10 m each) in Morristown. National Historical Park, NJ, in early June 1994.

A health care plan for the student with diabetes.

This article presents a generic healthcare plan for the student with diabetes. This plan provides the basis for comprehensive assessment and subsequent interventions and evaluation for the student with diabetes in the care of the school nurse. For this plan to be useful, it must be tailored to the student's individual needs.

A time for self-care: role of the home healthcare nurse.

The concepts of self-efficacy and self-responsibility in personal health provide the framework for developing cost-effective nursing strategies that have positive outcomes for the consumer and the provider Promoting self-care requires that nurses be knowledgeable about outcome planning, the teaching-learning process, and supportive techniques for ongoing care. The concepts outlined in this article can be used to provide care for those who require health promotion, health maintenance, and illness management.

Genetic and developmental influences on infant mouse ultrasonic calling. I. A diallel analysis of the calls of 3-day olds.

Ultrasonic calls produced by young mice reliably elicit investigation and retrieval by adults. While there are large individual differences in the characteristics of these calls, little work has been done to partition that variation. We completed a 4 x 4 diallel cross and Hayman analyses on several characteristics of these cries.

Effect of support groups with coaching on adaptation to early stage breast cancer.

The effects of 8-week cancer support groups (CSGs) with and without coaching on adaptation were tested in a sample of 181 women with newly diagnosed early stage breast cancer. CSG participation with coaching resulted in higher quality of relationship with significant other at CSG conclusion; this effect was not sustained 8 weeks later. CSG participation had no effect on symptom distress, emotional distress, or functional status.

Correlations among field dependence/independence, locus of control and self-monitoring.

72 college students completed the Witkin Rod and Frame Test and the Group Embedded Figures Test as measures of Field Dependence/Independence, the Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, and the Synder Self-monitoring Scale. Analysis indicated a small but significant relationship between scores on the first two tests but none between the second two. A significant correlation between scores on locus of control with the Group Embedded Figures Test and none with the Rod and Frame test, and a small but significant relationship between scores on self-monitoring with those on both measures of field dependence.

Development and testing of the symptom experience scale.

The Symptom Experience Scale (SES) was designed to measure women's experience of symptoms associated with treatment for breast cancer. The SES, a modification of McCorkle's Symptom Distress Scale, was developed and tested in a sample of 252 women with breast cancer. Exploratory factor analysis yielded six factors, which used all 24 SES items and accounted for 83.

Issues in the genetics of social behavior: revisited.

Though social behavior has not been overlooked by behavior geneticists, the number of studies is small when compared to those on individual traits. One reason for the neglect may be the difficulty of making connections between genes and social behaviors, which by definition involve the interaction of two or more organisms. Fuller and Hahn (1976) addressed this issue and described three means of establishing social groups that would facilitate genetic analysis.

The prevalence of grandmothers as primary caregivers in a poor pediatric population.

In the wake of the HIV/AIDS and crack cocaine epidemics, poor urban communities face growing numbers of older adults, largely grandmothers, who have become surrogate parents to children orphaned by these epidemics. This study is the first in the United States to determine the prevalence of older surrogate parents among families registered at pediatric clinics. The three clinics selected were in low income neighborhoods of New York City with a high incidence of female HIV/AIDS and substance abuse.

Help wanted. Nurse or health educator?

Although health education may be considered a component of nursing, trained professionals exist whose sole focus is health education. For optimal results, these health education specialists, not nurses, are the ones hospitals and healthcare organizations should seek out when staffing their departments of health education.

Sex- and strain-related differences in first-pass alcohol metabolism in mice.

Adult males and females of three strains of mice, C57BL/10J, C57BL/6J and DBA/2J, were intubated or injected intraperitoneally with 0.02 ml/g body weight of a 25% alcohol solution. Thirty minutes later, their blood alcohol levels (BAL) were measured.

Nursing faculty--an endangered species?

A present faculty shortage has been documented, and the potential for an even worse shortage in the future is very real. Implications of a continued shortage for both nursing education and practice are serious. They include limitations on enrollments leading to future nursing shortages, burnout of present faculty, or possible decline in the quality of programs.

Management of chemical disaster victims.

Following a hazardous chemical accident, early critical care life support is crucial to minimizing potential morbidity and mortality (1). Providing effective care to victims, however, depends on the nature of the incident, the number of victims affected, the availability of medical care, the coordination of rescue efforts, the available modes of evacuation, and the availability of post-evacuation tertiary care. The goal in mass casualty scenarios is to minimize mortality and morbidity.