Effects of the Nurse Athlete Program on the Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors, Physical Health, and Mental Well-being of New Graduate Nurses.

Recognizing that transition from nursing student to point-of-care nurse can be a stressful time period in one's career. A pilot study at a large Midwestern medical center tested the preliminary effects of a health-oriented workshop, the Nurse Athlete, on new graduate nurses' healthy lifestyle beliefs, healthy lifestyle behaviors, depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as health outcomes. The Nurse Athlete workshop, provided in partnership with Johnson & Johnson's Human Performance Institute (HPI), used materials from HPI's Corporate Athlete program. The 2-day workshop focuses on energy management through a comprehensive examination of goals and values in relation to one's spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical development and provides practical strategies to improve self-care. Eighty-eight new graduate nurses hired at the university's medical center were offered the opportunity to participate in the Nurse Athlete program and associated study. Sixty-nine percent of these new graduate nurses (n = 61) consented and participated in the program. There was a statistically significant decrease in the participants' weight and body mass index from baseline to the 6-month follow-up assessment, which resulted in small to medium positive effects for the Nurse Athlete program. There was also a significant decrease in body fat percentage across time, resulting in a large positive intervention effect. Statistically significant reductions in depressive symptoms were measured between baseline and 6 months.

NEXus: Making Efficient Use of Limited Resources.

Faculty to teach and mentor doctoral nursing students are and will continue to be in short supply. Coupled with ever-increasing resource-constricted educational environments, doctoral programs are challenged to provide high-quality education with limited resources. The Nursing Education Exchange (NEXus) is a viable solution to help meet that challenge. This article presents an overview of the origins and evolution of NEXus, financial considerations, and basic steps for joining NEXus, along with 4 exemplars. NEXus has continued to grow since its inception in 2007. In 2015, the number of NEXus schools reached 20, with 11 schools offering both doctor of philosophy and doctor of nursing practice courses. Currently, NEXus offers over 160 courses, organized into 14 clusters such as gerontology and chronic illness. Recently, a collaboration between the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Nursing Excellence and NEXus was formalized. This collaboration prepares faculty to address an aging population. In summary, in an era of increased demand for doctoral prepared nurses, a lack of qualified doctoral nursing faculty, and limited financial resources, the NEXus collaborative provides a model for optimal resource sharing.

Relationships among work stress, job satisfaction, mental health, and healthy lifestyle behaviors in new graduate nurses attending the nurse athlete program: a call to action for nursing leaders.

BACKGROUND: Although nurses are educated to take outstanding care of others, they themselves often have poor health outcomes, including high rates of depression and obesity, which are associated with stressful work environments. Furthermore, a high percentage of new graduate nurses leave their positions in the first year of employment, resulting in exorbitant costs to health care systems. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the relationships among key variables that influence job satisfaction and healthy lifestyle behaviors of new graduate nurses, including workplace stress, work environment, lifestyle beliefs, and mental health. DESIGN: A descriptive correlational design was used with baseline data from 61 new graduate nurses attending the 2-day Nurse Athlete program, a workshop that focuses on nutrition, energy management, and physical activity. RESULTS: Higher levels of workplace stress were associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety as well as lower levels of resiliency, job satisfaction, and healthy lifestyle beliefs. IMPLICATIONS: Nurse leaders and managers must invest in creating healthy work environments for new and experienced nurses as well as provide mental health screening, resources, and intervention programs that focus on education and skills-building in health promoting behaviors, including emotional regulation of stress, anxiety, and depression.

The impact of a virtual community on student engagement and academic performance among baccalaureate nursing students.

The purpose of this article is to present findings from a study which evaluated the effectiveness of a virtual community (an emerging pedagogical application) on student engagement and academic performance. Virtual communities mirror real-life through unfolding patient histories and relationship development over time. Students also become more engaged in learning by creating personally meaningful knowledge of a concept (Rogers & Stone, 2007). Virtual communities offer one teaching strategy to assist students in learning complex, health-related content in a contextualized manner. This quasi-experimental study involved first-semester baccalaureate nursing students enrolled in a course at two campuses of a nursing program at a large university in the Southwest. Three key strategies assessed the impact of the virtual community on student engagement and learning: third-party observational measurement, end-of-class student/faculty surveys, and use of knowledge items in student exams for the class. Significant differences between the control and experimental group were found regarding learning engagement and communication exchanges; the groups appeared similar in ratings of quality of instruction and academic performance. Use of virtual communities can help nursing educators address the recent Carnegie Foundation study's (Benner, Sutphen, Leonard & Day, 2010) counsel to implement "pedagogies of contextualization" in which theoretical and factual information about diseases and conditions are placed in the context of a patient's experience.

Reliability and validity of an instrument assessing nurses' attitudes about healthy work environments in hospitals.

AIM: To examine the psychometric properties of an instrument used to evaluate the work environment of direct care nurses employed in hospital settings. BACKGROUND: Healthy work environments are associated with increased retention and high-quality patient care. METHODS: Items for the instrument were based on the American Association of Critical Care Nurses' standards for a healthy work environment. Six items measured the individual's contribution to the work environment and six measured co-workers' contributions. Each item was graded on a scale from 'A=well above average' to 'F=failing'. The instrument was administered by nurse leaders to 210 direct care nurses in six hospitals. RESULTS: The Cronbach α was 0.75 for the self-rating subscale and 0.89 for the co-workers rating subscale. Administrators rated their co-workers significantly higher [n=32, mean (M)=2.69, standard deviation (SD)=0.63] than direct care nurses rated theirs (n=209, M=2.31, SD=0.83, P=0.03). Direct care nurses intending to stay in nursing rated co-workers significantly higher (n=170, M=2.35, SD=0.81) than those not intending to stay (n=22, M=1.87, SD=0.81, P=0.01). CONCLUSION: The instrument is a feasible, reliable and valid method for assessing the work environment. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The instrument can be used to assess the relationship of the work environment to nurse retention in hospitals.

Peplau in cyberspace: an analysis of Peplau's Interpersonal Relations Theory and computer-mediated communication.

This paper explores the applicability of Peplau's Interpersonal Relations Theory to the context of computer-mediated communication. Although Peplau never intended her theory be applied to this mode of communication, research from the fields of communication and social psychology suggest that such application may be possible. After Peplau's theory is briefly summarized, research and theory dealing with computer-mediated communication are explored, and questions for future research endeavors are offered.