Nursing Student Perceptions of Home Visit Simulation Scenarios.

ABSTRACT: Ensuring quality clinical placement in community health nursing courses is challenging as faculty cannot observe all nursing students and little consistency is found in student experiences. Simulation can supplement traditional clinical experiences. Two home visit scenarios with learning objectives were developed. Students conducted the scenarios in the role of nurse or nursing student and completed evaluations of the experience. The findings suggest students perceived they were able to meet the learning objectives in each scenario regardless of which role was played. Home visit simulations were beneficial to student learning in the community health nursing course.

Tutoring for Success: Empowering Graduate Nurses After Failure on the NCLEX-RN.

BACKGROUND: Failure on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) is a devastating experience. Most research related to NCLEX-RN is focused on predicting and preventing failure. Despite these efforts, more than 20,000 nursing school graduates experience failure on the NCLEX-RN each year, and there is a paucity of literature regarding remediation after failure. METHOD: The aim of this article is to describe an individualized tutoring approach centered on establishing a trusting relationship and incorporating two core strategies for remediation: the nugget method, and a six-step strategy for question analysis. RESULTS: This individualized tutoring method has been used by three nursing faculty with a 95% success rate on an NCLEX retake attempt. CONCLUSION: Further research is needed to identify the elements of this tutoring method that influence success. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(12):758-761.].

Meeting baccalaureate public/community health nursing education competencies in nurse-managed wellness centers.

The purpose of this article is to describe how community health competencies for baccalaureate nursing education have been met by locating clinical experiences in nurse-managed wellness centers. Such centers are an ideal setting for students to integrate theoretical concepts into clinical practice while building on previous learning. Students are able to develop skills in community health nursing practice at individual, family, and population level. In addition, the practice setting provides other advantages. Clients who represent a vulnerable population group receive valuable health services. Students gain learning opportunities that are broader than community health competencies, and faculty are provided clinical practice, research, and scholarship opportunities. The challenges to year-round sustainability of nurse-managed centers are burdensome; however, the benefits outweigh the difficulty of those challenges.

Using the Omaha System as a framework to demonstrate the value of nurse managed wellness center services for vulnerable populations.

Nurse managed wellness centers (NMWCs) are academic service settings where baccalaureate nursing students gain rich community health clinical experience while providing valuable wellness services to a vulnerable population. The Omaha System provides a framework for generating meaningful data that is essential for describing the value of NMWCs. A retrospective study of Omaha System assessments from 9 NMWCs provides descriptive data about the characteristics of the patient population and patient outcomes in relationship to knowledge, behavior, and status. Patients showed significant improvement for the overall sample and for 6 important health problems. These findings support anecdotal data about the value of NMWC for a vulnerable population. Research for this article was funded in part by a grant from HighMark.

Suicide notes among Native Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos.

Suicide is a significant health problem, yet many questions regarding suicide remain unanswered. One of the most frequently asked questions is related to motive: "Why did that person complete suicide?" We explored motivations for completing suicide, especially with regard to cultural differences, by analyzing suicide notes written by Native Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos in New Mexico. Five categories emerged describing motivation: feelings of (a) alienation, (b) failure or inadequacy, (c) being psychologically overwhelmed; (d) the desire to leave problems behind, and (e) reunification in an afterlife. The largest difference to emerge between ethnic groups was in the alienation category, which included more Hispanics and Native Americans than Anglos. The overall lack of differences in motivation among the ethnic groups suggests that commonalities in suicidal behavior outweigh the differences. Practical implications for research and practice are discussed, along with strengths and limitations of the study.

Positive health practices and temporal perspective in low-income adults.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to describe health-promoting behaviours and temporal perspective in low-income adults. BACKGROUND: Positive health practices represent a broad range of health-promoting behaviours. The ability to adopt positive health practices may be influenced by many factors, one of which is temporal perspective, the perceived relationship between past, present and future times. METHODS: This exploratory study was conducted in a south central Pennsylvania community with a convenience sample of individuals who were eligible for a subsidized low-income housing programme. Positive health practices were measured using the Personal Lifestyle Questionnaire. Temporal perspective was measured with the Circles Test. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 75 subjects, 61 women (81%) and 14 men (19%). Positive health practices were relatively high (mean = 70 out of a possible score of 96). Forty three per cent of the subjects expressed future temporal dominance and 80% of the subjects in this study expressed non-continuous temporal relatedness. CONCLUSIONS: Health-promoting behaviours in this low-income sample were similar to those reported in other samples in middle-class adult samples. The percentage of subjects who expressed future dominance was similar to findings in other samples. The percentage of subjects who expressed non-continuous temporal relatedness was different from findings reported in other samples, suggesting that perception of the relationship of past, present and future times is different in this low-income sample compared with other samples. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The temporal relatedness findings suggest that low-income individuals may not believe that adopting positive health practices will influence future health.

Fostering coping skills and resilience in Home Enteral Nutrition (HEN) consumers.

BACKGROUND: Home enteral nutrition (HEN) is a lifesaving therapy that provides benefits along with countless challenges. This qualitative study examined how HEN consumers learned to cope successfully with HEN-related challenges and uncovered how healthcare providers could help foster the process of coping in other HEN consumers. METHODS: Twelve adult HEN consumers who perceived that they were coping successfully and overcoming the adversity associated with HEN, and met the criteria for resilience using the Resilience Scale, self-selected for the study. Participants engaged in a series of 2 in-depth interviews. Data were coded and analyzed using grounded theory methodology. RESULTS: One overarching theme and 5 main categories emerged from the data, revealing that these individuals coped successfully with HEN by developing an attitude of personal responsibility to accept new life conditions, take charge of their own well-being, seek and accept support, maximize independence and normality, and focus on the positive. In addition, these participants used a variety of problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies and shared resilient characteristics such as self-efficacy and perseverance. CONCLUSIONS: Implications for clinical practice and HEN education, along with suggestions for healthcare providers to foster coping with HEN are provided. An educational manual with self-help suggestions for adult HEN consumers is also available at http://www.copingwell.com.