Peer mentoring in nursing education: A concept analysis.

AIM: This peer-mentoring concept analysis aimed to explore and define the concept of peer mentoring in nursing education and the impact it may have on nursing education. BACKGROUND: A lack of literature exists explicitly defining peer mentoring in nursing education. The interchangeable use of processes, terms, and applications may contribute to the lack of consistency and obscurity of nursing education scholarship on peer mentoring. Since peer mentoring can be used to enhance student success, there is a need to clarify the concept of peer mentoring in nursing education for accuracy in future nursing education research. DESIGN/REVIEW METHOD: Using Walker and Avant's framework, the authors identified defining attributes, antecedents, and consequences of peer mentoring. DATA SOURCE: The literature search involved a combination of terms in the MEDLINE with Full Text, Academic Search Complete, Humanities International, ERIC, CINAHL, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, and Consumer Health Complete-EBSCOhost databases. RESULTS: This concept analysis revealed a consistent definition of peer mentoring for use in nursing education. The definition of peer mentoring in nursing education is a formal learning partnership between two individuals (mentor and mentee) with differing levels of nursing school experience. The peer mentor promotes a positive academic and emotionally supportive environment, decreasing stress and increasing the mentee's confidence and competency. CONCLUSION: A shared definition and understanding of peer mentoring within nursing education can contribute to the consistent use of the concept in research and advance the scholarship of nursing education.

Succession planning in nursing education.

BACKGROUND: Succession planning in nursing is a new concept with limited evidence found in nursing education. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive summary of the descriptions of succession planning, as self-reported by administrators over an academic nursing division. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive methodology was utilized to obtain descriptions of succession planning from participants having personal experience with succession planning. FINDINGS: The categories discovered in the data included strategies for succession planning implementation, advantages of succession planning, and obstacles to succession planning. DISCUSSION: Succession planning can provide growth plans, leadership development, and mentoring programs allowing for positive relationships that cultivate, inspire, and assist faculty to develop the necessary skills to be successful in a leadership role. Succession planning requires adequate financial and human resources to develop potential leaders to meet the future needs of an organization, and ultimately, nursing education.

Concept analysis: Succession planning.

The aim is to understand the concept of succession planning and its application to initiate successful succession planning in nursing education. In nursing education, there is a lack of qualified academic nursing administrators associated with a national nursing faculty shortage. Succession planning is often confused with other leadership management techniques. An understanding of the concept and its application is required to initiate successful succession planning in nursing education. Walker and Avant's methodological approach was followed for this concept analysis. The electronic databases searched included CINAHL, Medline, Google Scholar, PROQUEST, ERIC, PsycINFO, along with reference and bibliographic lists, relevant books, and public domain websites. The initial search terms included: succession planning, academic deans/directors, and nursing education. A pattern of five attributes emerged related to the characteristics of the concept of succession planning: organizational support and culture, attitude, commitment, and resources. Antecedents included strategic planning, identification of potential individuals, leadership development, mentoring programs, and identification of leadership competencies. Consequences of succession planning appeared to be related to retention, recruitment, improved leadership competencies, decreased role transition stress, and a healthier work environment. Succession planning has been defined as the proactive strategy involving the purposeful identification, assessment, and development of individuals through the processes of educating and mentoring for future leadership positions and establishing leadership continuity within an institution. Succession planning is needed for the continued growth and development academic nursing leaders.

The driving competence of 90-year-old drivers: from a hospital-based driving clinic.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the performance on a standardized driving evaluation of a group of oldest old adults (age 90-97) against younger old adults (age 80-87) and examine whether the same cognitive variables and brake reaction time performance were associated with pass-fail status on a road test in both groups. Secondary objectives focused on an examination of the specific driving errors of both groups. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study was conducted in the setting of a clinical driving evaluation program at an academic medical center in the United States. In this study we examined the performance of 88 participants (27 age 90-97 and 61 age 80-87) who completed comprehensive driving evaluations between 1997 and 2011. The outcome variable was performance on a standardized road test. Measures included the Trail Making Test (TMT), the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), and brake reaction time (BRT). An exploratory analysis of the possible predictive value of specific MMSE subtests was also performed. RESULTS: Results indicate that the oldest old adults (90-97 years old) were at no greater driving risk than were a younger old (80-87 years old) cohort and made similar types and frequency of driving errors. TMT-B time was associated with pass-fail status in both groups. MMSE attention items discriminated between safe and unsafe younger old drivers, and MMSE orientation items were associated with pass-fail status in the oldest old cohort. CONCLUSION: Drivers age 90 and above were at no greater driving risk than those one decade younger. MMSE orientation questions may be useful to assist in identifying which oldest old drivers could benefit from a comprehensive driving evaluation including an on-road test.

Emotion-cognition interaction in people at familial high risk for schizophrenia: the impact of sex differences.

Cognitive deficits are fundamental to schizophrenia, and research suggests that negative emotion abnormally interferes with certain cognitive processes in those with the illness. To a lesser extent, cognitive impairment is found in persons at risk for schizophrenia, but there is limited research on the impact of emotion on cognitive processing in at-risk groups. It is unknown whether interference of negative emotion precedes illness and contributes to vulnerability for the disorder. We studied the extent to which negative emotional information interferes with working memory in 21 adolescent and young adult first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia and 22 community controls. Groups were comparable in age, sex, education, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Primary measures were n-back tasks varying in cognitive load (1-back, 2-back, 3-back) with emotional faces (neutral, happy, fearful) as stimuli. The control group's response times (RTs) and the women's RTs, regardless of group, differed depending on the emotion condition. In contrast, the RTs of the relatives and of the men, regardless of group, did not differ by emotion. This study is the first to examine emotion-cognition interactions in relatives of individuals with schizophrenia. Reduced efficiency in processing emotional information may contribute to a greater vulnerability for schizophrenia that may be heightened in men. Additional research with larger samples of men and women is needed to test these preliminary findings.

Emotion processing in persons at risk for schizophrenia.

Evidence suggests that individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate emotion-processing deficits. However, the nature and extent of emotion abnormalities in individuals considered at risk for schizophrenia have not been previously summarized. This article provides a review of the recent literature pertaining to emotion processing in 3 at-risk populations: those at familial high risk, those with schizotypal characteristics, and those in the putative prodrome to psychosis. Studies are reviewed across the components of emotion perception, experience, and expression. Further, we discuss investigations into psychophysiology, brain structure, and brain function that employ emotion probes. Review of the literature suggests that individuals at high risk demonstrate similar abnormalities to those with schizophrenia but at an attenuated level. The most robust findings in at-risk groups are in the areas of reduced emotion perception, self-reported anhedonia, and increased negative affect. We conclude with an agenda for future research.

A preliminary study of emotion processing interference in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

The impact of emotional arousal may be an equal or more important factor than valence in determining whether emotion interferes with language output in individuals with schizophrenia. An affective reactivity task, comprising conditions separated by emotional valence (positive, negative) and arousal (low, high), was administered to 22 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 13 non-patient controls. Individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder demonstrated variable reactivity to both valence arousal. Results suggest that high arousal content can be especially impairing to certain individuals, and it is those individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder who demonstrate more depressive symptomatology that show the greatest affective reactivity to negatively valenced, high arousing information. Clarifying aberrant emotion processing in schizophrenia is crucial to understanding precursors to symptom exacerbation and to the consideration of optimal treatment strategies.

A preliminary study of sleep-disordered breathing in major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Individuals with obstructive sleep-disordered breathing (OSDB) commonly report symptoms of depression; however, the percentage of individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) who experience OSDB is less clear. This study aimed to examine OSDB in a sample of individuals with MDD, unselected for sleep-related complaints, along a continuum of ventilatory and hypoxic abnormalities. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The overnight sleep-related breathing of 19 individuals with MDD and 15 non-depressed controls was recorded using an unattended nasal pressure-based home sleep monitoring device. The device recorded nasal airflow, breathing effort, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and body position. RESULTS: The two groups varied significantly on three sleep-related breathing variables: major flow-limitation events, major flow-limitation events accompanied by a desaturation, and average saturation throughout the evening; and these groups approached significance on minor flow-limitation events accompanied by a desaturation and average number of desaturations throughout the evening. Sleep-related breathing variables predicted accurate grouping in 81.3% of those with MDD and 80.6% of the non-depressed participants. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that OSDB may play a more important role in MDD than previously recognized. OSDB may contribute to or exacerbate the condition of someone predisposed to MDD, and the treatment of OSDB may ameliorate or possibly prevent depressive symptoms.