Quality of life for patients with schizophrenia living in the community in Greece

Several quality of life instruments were considered for use in a Greek mental health environment. Subjective Quality of Life Profile was chosen as it was easy to complete and covered the issues raised by patients with schizophrenia through interviews. Confirmatory factor analysis gave credence to the four-dimensional structure identified by the original authors. Patients with schizophrenia were generally satisfied with their quality of life, found the items in the instrument important and were optimistic about expectations for change. Age, gender, education, marital status and years of sickness were not statistically significant in a general linear model with quality of life as the outcome for the 27 core questions. There were some statistically significant results for the three disease-specific questions; positive expectation was correlated positively with education and negatively with years of sickness.     

How to translate nursing care into costs and staffing requirements: part two in the Zebra system

The purpose of this paper is to describe part two of the Zebra system—the activity study: how such a study can be conducted, which requirements must be met and how the data are processed and can be used. The activity studies described were conducted in two of the wards of the oncology department in the University Hospital of Lund, Sweden. The results of the studies make it possible to calculate the distribution of different activities for nurses and practical nurses during 24 hours and the total nursing care minutes per patient and category of care. Together with the patient classification, part one in the Zebra system, it is possible to calculate nursing costs per patient stay and the patients' staffing requirements. It will be possible to relate nursing costs and staffing requirements to actual nursing care given instead of fixed standard costs and staffing figures.     

Proportion of Swedish school nurses' time devoted to different health care activities

School nurses play an important role in the preventive health care of children and adolescents. This study aimed to describe and investigate the school nurses' different activities and time spent on these activities. By completion of a time study record form all 26 school nurses, in a medium-sized town in Sweden, documented their activities during 10 working-days. Altogether 635 record forms were received. It was found that almost half of the school nurses' time was used for individual pupil activities, 17% for groups of pupils and 34% for administrative activities. School nurses spent 17% of all their working time at the school clinic, which in some way may reflect the pupils' need of the nurse in the school. These results highlighted the importance of school nurses and resulted in internal structural changes of school nurses' working time.     

Nursing scholarship in Japan: Development, facilitators, and barriers

This qualitative study sought a contemporary view of the development, facilitators of, and barriers to nursing scholarship in Japan from the perspectives of the scholars. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 scholars across Japan, which were digitally recorded, and the data were subjected to content analysis. Five themes emerged: a spirit of collectivism; a lack of nursing control; a lack of English ability; a high workload; and collaboration. The participants considered that culturally based consensus and communication behaviors, as well as the control and dominance by the medical profession, were hampering nursing scholarship. Furthermore, Japanese nurses were not in control of the profession in a period of unprecedented growth in university nursing education and a growing nursing shortage. A lack of English-speaking and English-writing abilities hindered collaboration with scholars internationally and the writing of international publications. Most of the participants felt unable to compare the extent and nature of Japanese scholarship with that of their Asian neighbors. The Japanese scholars need to grasp opportunities to learn English, collaborate with other nurses nationally and internationally, learn assertion and political skills to give them the confidence to take control of nursing education, and be more involved in research collaboration and international publications.     

Environments for nursing scholarship and journal impact factor in five countries

KETEFIAN S., DAI Y.‐T., HANUCHARURNKUL S., MENDES I.A.C. & NORMAN I.J. (2010) Environments for nursing scholarship and journal impact factor in five countries. International Nursing Review 57 , 343–351 Background: Universities worldwide are seeking objective measures for the assessment of their faculties' research products to evaluate them and to attain prestige. Despite concerns, the impact factors (IF) of journals where faculties publish have been adopted. Research objective: The study aims to explore conditions created within five countries as a result of policies requiring or not requiring faculty to publish in high IF journals, and the extent to which these facilitated or hindered the development of nursing science. Design: The design was a multiple case study of Brazil, Taiwan, Thailand (with IF policies, Group A), United Kingdom and the United States (no IF policies, Group B). Key informants from each country were identified to assist in subject recruitment. Methods: A questionnaire was developed for data collection. The study was approved by a human subject review committee. Five faculty members of senior rank from each country participated. All communication occurred electronically. Findings: Groups A and B countries differed on who used the policy and the purposes for which it was used. There were both similarities and differences across the five countries with respect to hurdles, scholar behaviour, publishing locally vs. internationally, views of their science, steps taken to internationalize their journals. Conclusions: In group A countries, Taiwan seemed most successful in developing its scholarship. Group B countries have continued their scientific progress without such policies. IF policies were not necessary motivators of scholarship; factors such as qualified nurse scientists, the resource base in the country, may be critical factors in supporting science development.     

The nurse of the future: role and function

Health and nursing trends in relation to job profile and the location of future nurses' work, their competencies and responsibilities, ethics and values are discussed in this paper. Bio-ethical issues with nursing implications that probably will stand in the future are those concerned with life and death particularly with the use of advanced technology in every day practice. Ethical dilemmas arising in practice situations and the need for more humanistic nursing and health care as well as the axiologic orientation of future nurses are stressed.     

Using the “big picture” to get what you want

Few basic nursing education programs provide the student nurse with courses in business and finance. Those skills were most often acquired by nurse managers when they were promoted from a staff position to a management position and they were acquired on the job. As the health care environment becomes more complex, so too does the scope of business and financial skills. Today's nurse manager must develop a wider range of skills to survive. Among the most important is an ability to connect unit level needs to the overall goals of the organization.