Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments and future research challenges

JOHNSON M., COWIN L.S., WILSON I. & YOUNG H. (2012) Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments and future research challenges. International Nursing Review Aim: We propose that the conceptual orientation of professional identity is a logical consequence of self‐concept development by focusing on career and its meaning and presents a measurable set of concepts that can be manipulated to improve retention of student and registered nurses within health service. Background: Although professional identity is a term that is commonly written of in nursing literature, its theoretical origins remain unclear, and available empirical evidence of its presence or ability to change is omitted from nursing research. Sources of evidence: We present a professional identity pathway and explore the factors that influence professional identity throughout a career in nursing. Discussion: Nurses' professional identities develop throughout their lifetimes, from before entering nursing education, throughout their years of study and clinical experience, and continue to evolve during their careers. Education is, however, a key period as it is during this time students gain the knowledge and skills that separate nurses as professional healthcare workers from lay people. Conclusion: Finally, a call for longitudinal studies of students to graduates, using conceptually derived and psychometrically proven instruments capable of detecting the subtle changes in the construct over time, is recommended. Further empirical research into the theoretical concepts that underline professional identity, and the factors that influence changes in this important construct in nursing, is required. Ultimately, the practical relevance of such research will lie in the potential it provides for enhanced nursing career support and improved workforce policies.     

Cultural difference in neural mechanisms of self-recognition

Abstract

Self-construals are different between Western and East Asian cultures in that the Western self emphasizes self-focused attention more, whereas the East Asian self stresses the fundamental social connections between people more. To investigate whether such cultural difference in self-related processing extends to face recognition, we recorded event-related potentials from British and Chinese subjects while they judged head orientations of their own face or a familiar face in visual displays. For the British, the own-face induced faster responses and a larger negative activity at 280–340 ms over the frontal-central area (N2) relative to the familiar face. In contrast, the Chinese showed weakened self-advantage in behavioral responses and reduced anterior N2 amplitude to the own-face compared with the familiar face. Our findings suggest that enhanced social salience of one's own face results in different neurocognitive processes of self-recognition in Western and Chinese cultures.     

Environmental risk factors in outpatient recovery from malnutrition

Studies evaluating Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres indicate that they hold several advantages over alternative methods of care for malnourished children. Nonetheless, an important minority of outpatient cases attending such centres does not make adequate progress, and this has been attributed to shortcomings in their home environment.

A survey in Uganda showed that different features of the home environment affected progress for urban and rural outpatients. The findings also suggest that for both groups the child's home situation can indeed be used to explain his progress, with eight variables explaining around 70 percent of the variance in recovery scores. These variables describe the size of the child's family, the level of food resources available, and the amount of help his mother can martial in caring for him.

Information on these predictors of recovery could be recorded in the case notes on the child's first attendance at the clinic, thereby providing an initial estimate of the risk that he will not respond adequately to the outpatient treatment, requiring, instead, more intensive care.     

My face in yours: Visuo-tactile facial stimulation influences sense of identity

Abstract

Self-face recognition is crucial for sense of identity and self-awareness. Finding self-face recognition disorders mainly in neurological and psychiatric diseases suggests that modifying sense of identity in a simple, rapid way remains a “holy grail” for cognitive neuroscience. By touching the face of subjects who were viewing simultaneous touches on a partner's face, we induced a novel illusion of personal identity that we call “enfacement”: The partner's facial features became incorporated into the representation of the participant's own face. Subjects reported that morphed images of themselves and their partner contained more self than other only after synchronous, but not asynchronous, stroking. Therefore, we modified self-face recognition by means of a simple psychophysical manipulation. While accommodating gradual change in one's own face is an important form of representational plasticity that may help maintaining identity over time, the surprisingly rapid changes induced by our procedure suggest that sense of facial identity may be more malleable than previously believed. “Enfacement” correlated positively with the participant's empathic traits and with the physical attractiveness the participants attributed to their partners. Thus, personality variables modulate enfacement, which may represent a marker of the tendency to be social and may be absent in subjects with defective empathy.     

自制改良水枕防止早产儿头颅变形的观察及护理

目的观察自制改良水枕在维持早产儿正确舒适的体位,减少头颅、耳廓变形的效果。方法2007年8月～2008年12月将胎龄30～32周,头颅耳廓无畸形、无血肿,无出血症状,使用温箱保暖的100例早产儿根据入院的单双日随机分为对照组和研究组,分别采用传统方法和使用自制改良水枕垫高头颈部,观察比较两组早产儿头颅、耳廓外观、呼吸频率及血氧饱和度改变,观察期为15d。结果两组早产儿头颅、耳廓外观变形存在差异,有统计学意义(P0.01);呼吸频率及血氧饱和度改变差异无意义(P0.05)。结论自制改良水枕可减少早产儿头颅和耳廓变形,从而促进其正常生理机能的发育。     

增城市农村地区2型糖尿病患者自我血糖监测现状及干预研究

目的：了解增城市农村地区2型糖尿病患者自我血糖监测（SMBG）现状,并探讨综合性干预对SMBG的影响。方法：采用问卷调查形式调查增城市农村地区2型糖尿病患者SMBG情况。共发放调查问卷250份,收回有效问卷242份。242例调查对象按随机数字表法分为干预组（n=106）和对照组（n=136）,干预组给予综合性干预措施,对照组未行任何干预,比较两组对SMBG认知、态度、行为及血糖控制效果的差异。结果：242例患者中,便携式血糖仪拥有率为17.77%,SMBG监测率为16.12%,SMBG频率为4.51次/月;未进行SMBG的首位原因为“血糖仪和血糖试纸太贵”（80.79%）,其次为“自己认为没必要”（70.44%）;39例进行SMBG的患者中,仅17.95%的患者对SMBG频率、操作方法、结果记录基本掌握;干预后,干预组SMBG认知率、支持率、检测率及空腹血糖达标率均明显高于对照组（P<0.05）。结论：增城市农村地区2型糖尿病患者SMBG的水平较低,可通过综合性干预提高患者SMBG依从性。