Psychiatric nursing for promotion of mental health and prevention of depression in the elderly: a case study

The aim of this case study was to describe and analyse the basic pre-conditions for an intervention programme focusing upon mental health promotion and prevention of depression in an elderly community group and to discuss the psychiatric nurse's community-oriented health promotion work. The intervention programme, which was led by a psychiatric nurse, was built on intersectorial co-operation between public and voluntary organizations, development of social networks to promote social support, and target group participation. The nurse's function in the community-oriented work was to act at the individual, group and society level, as well as to mobilize resources among individuals and organizations, in order to create a favourable interaction, resulting in health and empowerment for the individual. Pre-conditions for leading this work were: knowledge of health and mental all health among the elderly, investigation methodology, knowledge about the local society, as well as pedagogical, supervisory and social competence.     

Nurses' positive attitudes to nutritional management but limited knowledge of nutritional assessment in Korea

Background:  Nurses' involvement in nutritional management has received greater emphasis as an accountable factor for the nutritional status of patients. Studies have shown that there are deficiencies in awareness of the importance of nutritional assessment and limited nutritional knowledge in nurses.
Aim:  The purpose of this study was to investigate nutritional attitudes and knowledge of nurses working in the hospital environment.
Methods:  A questionnaire survey was conducted. It is focused on nutritional management with regard to assessment of nutritional status and implementation of nutritional care. Nurses were recruited from the university hospital in Seoul, Korea.
Findings:  A majority of nurses had positive attitudes towards patients' nutritional status and had a high desire to receive nutritional information. However, they had limited knowledge of nutrition, especially nutritional assessment criteria which are basic to the evaluation of patient's nutritional status. Nurses did not perform the nutritional assessment appropriately in practice.
Conclusions:  These findings suggest that nurses have limited nutritional knowledge and they use nutritional assessment criteria poorly in clinical settings. This study provides a framework for developing nutritional management programmes and a standardized protocol for nutritional assessment.     

Self-reported gastrointestinal and cardiovascular symptoms in female Turkish nurses

Aim:  This study aimed to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal and cardiovascular symptoms and to compare working conditions and lifestyle characteristics among nurses.
Background:  Gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disorders are important health problems in nurses. Although many epidemiologic studies have researched nurses' health problems, few have focused on their cardiovascular and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Methods:  A cross-sectional design was used with a sample of 400 nurses from a medical faculty hospital in northwestern Turkey. Data were collected using the Physical Health Questionnaire of the Standard Shift Work Index.
Results:  The nurses worked different shifts and provided direct patient care in four different clinical areas in the hospital. There were statistically significant differences in age, educational status, marital status, work years, weekly working hours and type of work shift among nurses in different units. The mean gastrointestinal symptoms subscale score was 17.7 [standard deviation (SD) = 3.2] and the mean cardiovascular symptoms subscale score was 14.4 (SD = 3.7). Compared with results in similar studies, the nurses' gastrointestinal and cardiovascular symptoms scores in our study are quite high. The regression model shows that gastrointestinal symptoms are most prevalent in the 20–30-year-old age group [odds ratio (OR) = 13.90] and the cigarette-smoking group (OR = 8.52). The most important factors affecting the prevalence of cardiovascular symptoms are marital status (OR = 2.41) and smoking (OR = 2.31).
Conclusion:  The findings might help occupational health nurses and other occupational health-care personnel in assessing high-risk nurses who could benefit from interventions aimed at minimizing gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disorders.     

Is the grass any greener? Canada to United States of America nurse migration

Aim:  Little or no attempt has been made to determine why nurses leave Canada, remain outside of Canada, or under what circumstances might return to Canada. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of Canadian-educated registered nurses working in the USA.
Data sources:  Data for this study include the 1996, 2000 and 2004 USA National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses and reports from the same time period from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Findings:  This research demonstrates that full-time work opportunities and the potential for ongoing education are key factors that contribute to the migration of Canadian nurses to the USA. In addition, Canada appears to be losing baccalaureate-prepared nurses to the USA.
Discussion:  These findings underscore how health care policy decisions such as workforce retention strategies can have a direct influence on the nursing workforce. Policy emphasis should be on providing incentives for Canadian-educated nurses to stay in Canada, and obtain full-time work while continuing to develop professionally.
Conclusion:  Findings from this study provide policy leaders with important information regarding employment options of interest to migrating nurses.
Study limitations:  This study describes and contrasts nurses in the data set, thus providing information on the context of nurse migration from Canada to the USA. Data utilized in this study are cross-sectional in nature, thus the opportunity to follow individual nurses over time was not possible.     

Bibliometric review of references of nursing research papers during the decade 1994–2003 in Turkey

ERGUL, S., ARDAHAN, M., TEMEL, A.B. & YILDIRIM, B.Ö. (2010) Bibliometric review of references of nursing research papers during the decade 1994–2003 in Turkey. International Nursing Review 57 , 49–55
Aim:  To identify important information on the state of academic nursing and the characteristics of academic nursing publications in Turkey.
Methods:  The study consists of retrospective bibliometric research. The selected sample of the research consisted of six Turkish nursing journals published between 1994–2003 from a total population of ten journals. Seventy-four issues of these six journals were included and 825 research papers were analysed. A series of classic bibliometric indexes were used.
Results:  The average number of references per scientific paper is 16.19 [±standard deviation (SD) 8.56]. The changes in the number of references taken from journals over time do not show strong fluctuations but were statistically significant ( P  < 0.001). The average number of references per paper is 17.71 (±SD 8.09) for research papers, while it is 14.50 (±SD 8.76) for reviews. The Price's index is 23.8% and the insularity index is 31.8%.
Conclusions:  The number of references used for papers has been increasing in recent years. The use of journals within references is high while the use of books is low. The Price's index tendency is decreasing. The high insularity index observed in the articles may be considered as a negative indicator of nursing journals in Turkey.     

Italian–Moldovan international nurse migration: rendering visible the loss of human capital

PALESE A., CRISTEA E., MESAGLIO M. & STEMPOVSCAIA E. (2010) Italian–Moldovan international nurse migration: rendering visible the loss of human capital. International Nursing Review 57 , 64–69
Aim:  To describe the process of the migration of Moldovan nurses to Italy.
Background:  Formerly a part of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Moldova gained independence in 1991. Currently, there are 25 848 nurses (60.6 per 10 000 inhabitants) working mainly in the public health system. Each year, around 2000 nurses leave the country in search of better working conditions and a better quality of life.
Methods:  A longitudinal study design was adopted (2006–2007). In the first phase, we contacted all known nurses living in Moldova and their available colleagues following a snowball sampling strategy. Inclusion criteria were nurses who had decided to migrate to Italy and had already prepared the migration documents and/or were awaiting their departure. In the second phase, we interviewed the same sample of nurses on arrival in Italy.
Findings:  After one year, only 25 nurses out of the 110 initially interviewed (22.7%) had arrived in Italy; none were working as nurses. The cost of the migration process incurred by each nurse was around 3278 euros, and the waiting time from the decision to leave until arrival was around 24 months.
Conclusions:  All Moldovan nurses involved in this study, once they arrived in Italy, ceased to exist from an official perspective. Policy and recommendations need to be developed to ensure the integration of Moldovan-educated nurses into the health-care system and to monitor the amount of human capital (in terms of care drain, brain drain and youth drain) that this process risks wasting.     

Nursing clinical trial of breast self-examination education in China

LIU C.-Y., XIA H.-O., ISAMAN D.M., DENG W. & OAKLEY D. (2010) Nursing clinical trial of breast self-examination education in China. International Nursing Review 57 , 128–134
Aim:  The aim of this study was to test community-based nursing education about breast self-examination to see whether self-examination frequency could be increased.
Background:  Breast cancer rates in China are rising rapidly, especially in cities. The majority of Chinese women does not know about breast self-examination, and the Chinese health care system cannot provide mammograms for the millions of at-risk women throughout China.
Method:  This study was a randomized clinical trial of nurse-provided, community-based teaching of breast self-examination in the urban and rural areas of Tianjin and urban and suburban areas of Shanghai. Women ( n  = 1510) never diagnosed with breast cancer and 40 years and older were randomized by community and stratified by urban vs. other residences.
Results:  At baseline, 9% of the intervention and 6% of the control groups did breast self-examination at least every other month. After 12 months, 34% of the intervention, but only 11% of the control, group did breast self-examination that often ( P  < 0.001). There was a significant impact in urban, suburban and rural areas, and intervention effects were stronger than any of the other influences tested.
Conclusion:  The clinical trial showed a statistically significant increase in breast self-examination after the nursing education intervention. As no other breast cancer screening method is available in most of China, this method is best suited for the masses of people currently at risk in China.