Seasonal affective disorder or SAD is a recurrent major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern usually beginning in fall and continuing into winter months. A subsyndromal type of SAD, or S-SAD, is commonly known as “winter blues.” Less often, SAD causes depression in the spring or early summer. Symptoms center on sad mood and low energy. Those most at risk are female, are younger, live far from the equator, and have family histories of depression, bipolar disorder, or SAD. Screening instruments include the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Typical treatment includes antidepressant medications, light therapy, Vitamin D, and counselling. This paper provides an overview of SAD.

Men's emotional health can be overlooked during their partner's pregnancy and throughout the first postpartum year. Postpartum depression, once expected only in new mothers, is now estimated to occur in 4-25% of new fathers as well. The incidence of paternal postpartum depression is greater in couples where maternal postpartum depression is also present. Paternal postpartum depression can be difficult to assess. New fathers may seem more angry and anxious than sad. And yet, depression is present. When left untreated, paternal postpartum depression limits men's capacity to provide emotional support to their partners and children. This article reviews the incidence and prevalence of paternal postpartum depression, comments on tools to measure the disorder, identifies paternal behaviors that may indicate depression, examines the effects of parental depression on families and discusses what nurses can do to begin to help.

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Canadian Licensed Practical Nurses continuing their education in an online Bachelor of Nursing program face unique barriers as they transition towards a new and more complex nursing role. This qualitative descriptive study explored Post Licensed Practical Nurse to Bachelor of Nursing (Post LPN to BN) students' perceptions of their experiences during their education. George Kelly's (1955/1991) psychology of personal constructs, which seeks to understand how individuals perceive the world around them, was the theoretical framework for this three year longitudinal project in which 10 Post LPN to BN students were interviewed at the beginning, middle and end of their program. Transcripts from the interviews were analyzed and three key themes are presented to illustrate barriers that Post LPN to BN students faced and the strategies they implemented to overcame them. First, workplace mentors helped Post LPN to BN students apply their learning. Second, personal learning goals sustained their motivation. Third, time management strategies included terminating full time employment.

Personal construct theory and repertory grid technique provides a suitable framework for exploring Registered Nursing students' perceptions of their psychiatric practicum. This descriptive research was designed to understand students' own ways of constructing knowledge during their mental health clinical experience. A constructivist conceptual perspective and George Kelly's personal construct psychology were the theoretical bases of the research. A qualitative case study methodology allowed creation of and reflection on personal construct changes as provided in participants' review of repertory grid ideas about psychiatric nursing. The participants were six Canadian second-year nursing students in a Baccalaureate programme that integrated psychiatric and medical surgical nursing curricula. The following three overarching themes were identified and are used to explain and describe significant features of the psychiatric clinical experience: 1) students' anxiety related more to feeling unable to help than to interactions with mentally ill patients; 2) students' feelings of a lack of inclusion in staff nurse groups; 3) student emphasis on the importance of nonevaluated student-instructor discussion time.

Little is known about the process of how nurses transition between vocational training and institutions of higher education. Understanding this process provides educators with the knowledge to support new groups of university students making this transition. Grounded theory (GT) was used to explore and understand this process. Three studies from a 7-year research program were used as data. The analysis led to the generation of a GT illuminating the process of students transitioning from post-LPN to BN. This GT illustrates how students overcome difficulties encountered moving to a more complex nursing role. The students' main concern was a lack of independence. The core variable, which resolves this main concern, and which emerged from the analysis of the data is developing independence. There are three sub-core variables, resisting, reaching out and re-imagining which support this core variable of developing independence.

Striving for excellence is an admirable goal. Adaptive or healthy perfectionism can drive ambition and lead to extraordinary accomplishments. High-achieving people often show signs of perfectionism. However, maladaptive, unhealthy, or neurotic perfectionism, where anything less than perfect is unacceptable, can leave individuals vulnerable to depression. In both personal and professional relationships, nurses need to understand how accepting only perfection in self and others is likely to lead to emotional distress. This paper reviews perfectionism as a personality style, comments on perfectionism and high achievement, discusses vulnerabilities to depression, identifies how to recognize perfectionists, and presents balancing strategies perfectionists can implement to lessen their vulnerability to depression.

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