Background Mothers whose infants are born with complex congenital heart disease (CCHD) experience stress during their infant’s hospitalization in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU). Objectives This study addressed 2 research questions: (1) What are the parental stressors for mothers whose infants with CCHD are in the PCICU? And (2) What are the relationships of trait anxiety and 3 parental stressors to the parental stress response of state anxiety in mothers whose infants with CCHD are in the PCICU? Methods This descriptive correlational study included 62 biological mothers of infants admitted to a PCICU within 1 month of birth who had undergone cardiac surgery for CCHD. Maternal and infant demographics and responses to the Parental Stressor Scale: Infant Hospitalization and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were collected at 3 major PCICUs across the United States. Results Mothers’ scores revealed that infant appearance and behavior was the greatest stressor, followed by parental role alteration, then sights and sounds. The combination of trait anxiety and parental role alteration explained 26% of the variance in maternal state anxiety. Mothers with other children at home had significantly higher state anxiety than did mothers with only the hospitalized infant. Conclusions Results from this study revealed factors that contribute to the stress of mothers whose infants are born with CCHD and are hospitalized in a PCICU. Nurses are in a critical position to provide education and influence care to reduce maternal stressors in the PCICU, enhance mothers’ parental role, and mitigate maternal state anxiety.

Interprofessional education is broadly defined as a teaching and learning process that fosters collaborative work between two or more health care professions. Interprofessional education, as a proven, beneficial approach to collaborative learning that addresses the problems of fragmentation in health care delivery and separation among health care professionals, is frequently promulgated but not always successfully implemented. Furthermore, there are several different interpretations, overlapping terminologies, interchangeable terms, and a lack of uniformity of a definition for interprofessional education. This concept analysis determines the attributes and characteristics of interprofessional education, develops an operational definition that fits all health-related disciplines, defines common goals, and improves overall clarity, consensus, consistency, and understanding of interprofessional education among educators, professionals, and researchers. Through effective incorporation of interprofessional education into curricular and practice settings, optimal patient-centered outcomes can potentially result as effective and highly integrated teams facilitate and optimize collaborative patient care and safety.

BackgroundThis descriptive correlational and comparative study explored health-care faculty (HCF) attitudes toward interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional health-care teams, HCF perceptions of subjective norms, the influence of subjective norms on HCF intent to engage in IPE, and HCF intent to engage in IPE. In addition, differences among seven disciplines of HCF were explored.MethodsNursing, medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistants, and social work faculty were identified. Stratified random sampling was used to ensure that the population surveyed was representative of the target population. The total sample for this study included 439 HCF from the seven identified health-care professions in the US. Data collection included measures of attitudes toward IPE and attitudes toward interprofessional health-care teams. Subjective norms were measured using two 7-point rating scales. Intent to engage in IPE was measured using a 10-point rating scale.ResultsThere were no significant differences among HCF groups regarding attitudes toward IPE or interprofessional health-care teams. Administrative faculty reported greater intent to engage in IPE than teaching faculty. HCF who were currently in or had previously engaged in IPE reported greater intent to engage in or continue to engage, and had higher attitude and subjective norm scores than faculty without IPE experience. The combination of perceived pressure from school administrators and attitudes toward IPE was the best predictor of intent to engage in IPE.ConclusionIPE has the potential to influence patient quality of care and lead to better working relationships between health-care providers. HCF are more likely to engage in IPE when they believe their school’s administrators think they should engage in IPE and when they have positive attitudes toward IPE.