Empowering women by preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Emergency (post-coital) contraception is a useful intervention to reduce unplanned pregnancies in women of all ages. In Australia, two methods of emergency contraception are commonly used: the combined oral contraception pill and the intra-uterine contraceptive device. Additional regimes are used in other countries. A description of the regimes and political and moral issues related to them are described in this paper as is the relevance and significance of knowledge about emergency contraception for nurses working with women in a variety of health care settings.

Screening the vision of school-aged children: an interdisciplinary research approach.

The authors are registered nurses (RNs) and members of an Interdisciplinary Vision Screening Research Group investigating how best to screen children's vision, incorporating the assessment of binocular visual function. The aims of this pilot study were: to detect any visual skill problems of children in a Reception class (n = 28) using the Oyarzun Vision Screening Kit; to describe the behaviour of the children during the screening; to calculate the time taken to screen each child and to establish the interrater reliability (IRR) between the RNs and an optometrist. Thirteen of the children (46%) had at least one visual problem, necessitating follow-up assessment. Other results and research implications are also discussed.