This study indicates that video telehealth is an effective mechanism for delivering nursing and other health services to rural/remote communities and can impact positively on the quality of health care. The integration of telehealth practice can enhance the coordination, organisation and implementation of health care services.

Presurveys and postsurveys indicated that the nurses were receptive to the mode of delivery and the content was relevant to their telehealth practice.

BackgroundThis study was a pre-program evaluation of hospital-based nurses' tobacco intervention beliefs, confidence, training, practice, and perceived intervention barriers and facilitators. It was designed to identify relevant information prior to implementing tobacco cessation guidelines across a large northern rural region, home to 1 urban and 12 rural hospitals.MethodsThis cross-sectional survey was distributed by nurse managers to nurses in the 13 hospitals and returned by nurses (N = 269) via mail to the researchers.ResultsNurses were somewhat confident providing cessation interventions, agreed they should educate patients about tobacco, and 94% perceived tobacco counselling as part of their role. Although only 11% had received cessation training, the majority reported intervening, even if seldom--91% asked about tobacco-use, 96% advised quitting, 89% assessed readiness to quit, 88% assisted with quitting, and 61% arranged post-discharge follow-up. Few performed any of these steps frequently, and among those who intervened, the majority spent < 10 minutes. The most frequently performed activities tended to take the least amount of time, while the more complex activities (e.g., teaching coping skills and pharmacotherapy education) were seldom performed. Patient-related factors (quitting benefits and motivation) encouraged nurses to intervene and work-related factors discouraged them (time and workloads). There were significant rural-urban differences--more rural nurses perceived intervening as part of their role, reported having more systems in place to support cessation, reported higher confidence for intervening, and more frequently assisted patients with quitting and arranged follow-up.ConclusionsThe findings showed nurses' willingness to engage in tobacco interventions. What the majority were doing maps onto the recommended minimum of 1-3 minutes but intervention frequency and follow-up were suboptimal. The rural-urban differences suggest a need for more research to explore the strengths of rural practice which could potentially inform approaches to smoking cessation in urban hospitals.

No abstract

Aesthetic learning opportunities create experiential moments, where novice students can begin to explore the interconnectedness of self, other, and caring as it relates to their being and becoming a nurse.

Abstract:The impetus for this paper came from our experiences as learner-teachers of re-considering the epistemological and ontological roots of our undergraduate-nursing curriculum. It began as an earnest dialogue regarding particular aspects of first year undergraduate-nursing theory content, specifically, caring and compassion, self-concept and nursing identity, spirituality and culture, a simple question-how could we better engage first year nursing students with what they frequently considered to be "abstract" and "soft" concepts? An organic need to be "good teachers" and introduce learners to fundamental concepts in nursing, and have them understand, in meaningful ways, the complexity of "caring and compassion" with respect to what it is that nurses do, think, and enact. To this end, we enlisted Relational Inquiry, as articulated by Gweneth Hartrick Doane and Colleen Varcoe, as a means of creating an epistemological and ontological foundation for our teaching practice in order to better support the development of critically reflective, community orientated, caring relational practitioners. Initially, we thought relational inquiry was an epistemological endeavor and found that it is an ontological undertaking. We discovered that practicing from a relational caring perspective shifted our focus from the content to the student as a developing practitioner and human being. Through the process of re-imagining our teaching practice, we have begun to re-consider the importance of "attending to the spirit" of nursing students.

This paper clarifies a relationship between smoking and abuse and the subsequent implications for smoking cessation interventions and highlights the importance of addressing abuse and smoking cessation separately, even though they are interrelated problems. It provides nurses with appropriate initial responses when abuse is disclosed during an unexpected encounter such as during a smoking cessation intervention.

No abstract