Special Issue: Cardiovascular Nursing Research

Abstract

Clinical Nursing Research an International Journal received several excellent manuscripts addressing cardiovascular nursing research allowing us to create a special themed February issue. The manuscripts in this issue focus on cardiovascular disease: prevention, interventions, impact on mental health, self-care, and caregiver experiences. These studies demonstrate the richness of nursing research encompassing systematic reviews of the literature, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods addressing important areas for nursing interventions. Clinical Nursing Research publishes nursing research with nursing practice implications. Highlighting the importance of addressing culture within nursing research, the systematic review of the literature by (Shin et al., 2020) found that interventions were successful in improving cardiovascular health outcomes for Korean Americans. Yet, the role of the participants Korean culture was not consistently addressed in the analysis of the cardiovascular outcomes. Additionally, long-term cardiovascular outcomes were not addressed in the studies reviewed. Shin and colleagues (2020) suggest that by integrating and deploying cultural informed interventions would improve nursing's ability to decrease cardiovascular health disparities for Korean Americans (Shin et al., 2020). Gaining a better understanding of the heart failure related symptoms associated with greater depressive symptoms can improve nursing assessment and interventions for persons with heart failure and associated mental health concerns such as depressive symptoms. Graven and colleagues (2020) completed a cross-sectional secondary analysis of Heart Failure Symptom Survey data and identified that fatigue, dizziness, forgetfulness, and difficulty concentrating were associated with depressive symptoms in persons with heart failure. These make sense, anhedonia can resemble fatigue, inattention due to depression can manifest as forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating. Dizziness can be incapacitating exacerbating depressive symptoms. The authors recommend further research into symptom profiling to enhance nursing's ability to identify and intervene to address depressive symptoms in persons with heart failure (Graven et al., 2020). Self-care is essential in most chronic diseases. Tawalbeh and colleagues (2020) investigated self-care behaviors of Jordanians with heart failure. In their cross-sectional study of 226 Jordanians with heart failure, they found lower than 901611C NRXXX10.