No abstract

A coherent review of wartime nursing.

Results provide needed empirical support for a specific outreach intervention that speeds enrollment and engagement for rural individuals in VA services. Planned interventions to improve service utilization should ameliorate ambivalence about accessing health care in addition to addressing traditional systems or environmental-level barriers.

No abstract

The study purpose was to examine the reflections of the lived experiences of nurses in shelters or temporary community medical clinics responding for the first time to a civilian disaster. The disaster-nursing literature echoes the need for development of disaster content in the nursing curriculum. However, little thematic analysis-supporting curriculum from the lived experience of first-time responders exists in the literature. This study's purpose is to identify the essential thematic knowledge and skills necessary to provide care to disaster survivors in communities and for determining the themes necessary to formulate education in emergency preparedness curricula. A narrative inquiry, with a phenomenological analysis, to explore the lived experiences of nurses who responded once to a community disaster was the methodology used to identify themes. Thematic findings demonstrated a lack of prior knowledge about volunteering during a disaster response, that previous mass casualty exercises did not help with their actual responses, and that the participant RNs identified specific and assessment skills necessary for disasters.

No abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on measured levels of resilience and empathy in professional nurses with evidence of compassion fatigue and other stress related problems. Lowered levels of resilience, compassion fatigue and decreased empathy are significant predictors of burnout in nurses. Enhanced levels of resilience are associated with improved empathic responses and overall emotional well-being. Nurses who work in high stress environments often exhibit compassion fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorders that may reduce their ability to function effectively. Because tDCS has been used successfully in a number of chronic disease conditions, it would seem that there is potential for it to be useful in a broader context. The treatment with tDCS may be a potential strategy for improving resilience and eliminating chronic stress responses. A timed series counterbalanced research design was used for the study. Participants completed 18 sessions of tDCS over a six week period. They also completed a resilience, compassion fatigue, stress and empathy scale before and after each tDCS administration. A repeated measure analysis was used to determine if tDCS had an impact on scale scores. The analysis showed that tDCS amperage had significant positive effects on empathy. On the outcomes of resilience, compassion fatigue and stress, tDCS did not produce any significant changes. This research provides a new approach to compassion fatigue, an old problem with caregivers. Notably, when implemented with individuals experiencing problems that involve apathy or indifference, tDCS is a non-effortful intervention that offers a pathway that may improve symptoms and does not require extensive outlays of physical or mental energy.

Case managers dealing with elderly cancer survivors can target these needs in terms of transitions from inpatient to outpatient care and beyond into the survivorship period.