There is evidence that community matrons may have a beneficial effect on patients' perceptions of their care, psycho-social support, access to services and advocacy. The impact of this role on the patient experience needs to be taken into account when evaluating this nursing role and services, as benefits may not be captured by relying solely on quantitative evaluations of hospital readmission rates.
It is unclear whether the role is financially viable in its current form. Further research is required to examine differing models for implementing the role and judging its effectiveness in bridging the primary-secondary care interface.
Childbirth preparation classes that describe and explain women's responses to the increasing pain of labor contractions, the exhaustion of labor, and the effect of epidural analgesia could possibly assist men in preparing for the changes they will witness in their partners during the labor experience. Knowing that these changes are normal responses to the effects of labor might reduce men's levels of anxiety, frustration, and sense of helplessness. The labor nurse is a major support to the expectant fathers. Labor nurses who remain in the room during this phase, explain what is happening, and include the expectant father in their nursing care provide the best support.
The purpose of this study was to test the outcomes of group psycho-educational intervention (PEI) led by nurses on sexual health risks (knowledge, behaviour, disease burden) and psycho-social adaptation (depression, mood states, self-efficacy) in young adults with the chronic disease, genital herpes. Two hundred and fifty-two young adults with symptomatic genital herpes participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The intervention was participation in a three-session group PEI facilitated by a nurse in the community. Participants completed questionnaires measuring sexual health risks (herpes knowledge, sexual risk behaviour, disease burden of patterns of recurrences of outbreaks of the disease), and psycho-social adaptation (depression using the Beck Depression Inventory [BDI], mood states using the Profile of Mood States [POMS], and feelings of self-efficacy for protection from sexually transmitted diseases [PSTD]) at induction into the study, and at 3 and 6 months. Participants were mainly employed, Caucasian, single women in their twenties (X = 27.1 years, SD = 4.3), with some college education; 23% of the sample were men. After controlling for baseline knowledge about genital herpes, the experimental group had significantly more knowledge than the control group at 3 and 6 months' post-intervention. They also reported using condoms and spermicides to prevent the spread of genital herpes more often than did the control group. The implications for nurses in the community include the following: (a) PEI is an intervention that can be used by nurses in the community with a high-risk population; (b) group intervention is a viable treatment for people with a highly stigmatized, chronic sexually transmitted disease (STD); and (c) further testing of the use of PEI by nurses in the community with other high-risk populations is needed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.