Bereavement Care Team: Improving ICU Nurses' Professional Bereavement and Patient Family Experience.

When nurses care for dying patients, their compassion fatigue may increase and lead to burnout and feelings of professional bereavement. However, if a nurse perceives that the patient had a "good death," it may have a positive impact on them and reduce their emotional distress. The purpose of this project is to reduce nurses' feelings of professional bereavement by implementing a Bereavement Care Team (BCT) in the intensive care unit (ICU). This study is a pre-post quasi-experimental design. The Chen and Chow bereavement subscales Factor 1 and Factor 2 measured elements of a nurse's professional bereavement, and 5 items were statistically significant. Nurses felt a reduction in their exhaustion, frustration, and feeling fatigue in their job, reduced feelings about being nervous and worried about potential professional/patient conflicts, and nurses were moved by the patient's family's understanding of the patient's death. Implementing a BCT in the ICU provided an environment that created a "good death" for the patient and their loved ones. These findings supported the need for the BCT as they demonstrated an improvement in the ICU nurses' feelings of professional bereavement.

Willingness of Older Adults From Culturally Diverse Populations to Participate in COVID-19 Related Treatment Trials and Associated Factors.

This survey study aimed to assess the willingness of culturally diverse older adults to participate in COVID-19 research. The majority of the 276 participants were women (81%, n = 223) and Black/African American (62%, n = 172) or White Hispanic (20%, n = 56). A key finding from the survey was less than 1 of 10 respondents would be likely to participate in COVID-19 related research if given the opportunity. There were no differences observed by gender, race or ethnicity. Implications of these findings are considered. These study findings indicate continued effort and better messaging strategies are required to increase awareness that COVID-19 related research needs to include culturally diverse older adults to ensure vaccines and treatments are efficacious in different populations.

Gender differences in nurse practitioners: job satisfaction and patterns of care.

BACKGROUND: Although workforce diversity has been cited as an important workforce issue, the contemporary U.S. nurse practitioner (NP) workforce is dominated by females. Provider diversity, specifically gender, has been found to directly influence patient preference. However, lack of gender diversity in the NP workforce has never been specifically evaluated in terms of job satisfaction and patterns of care. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess and evaluate NP gender, job satisfaction and practice patterns of care for U.S. clinical NPs. METHODS: This study used the 2012 National Sample Survey of Nurse Practitioners (NSSNP). Participants meeting inclusion criteria totaled 8,978 NPs, of which 92.8% were female. RESULTS: Although overall job satisfaction was not shown to be significantly different between genders, several patterns of care were found to be significant. Of the 11 measured patterns of care in the NSSNP, six were significantly different between genders, with a female majority indicating that they performed these services most often. In only one rendered service, performed medical procedures, did male NPs indicate that they did more than females. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: This study suggests the importance of a gender-diversified U.S. nurse practitioner workforce. This is indicated by differences highlighted in patterns of care by NP gender, which has been postulated to influence patient outcomes, including perceived quality of care and engagement in the health care process. Patient preferences for same-gender NPs, particularly patients with privacy issues, warrant further exploration.

Women with high-risk pregnancies, problems, and APN interventions.

PURPOSE: To (a) describe women's prenatal and postpartum problems and advanced practice nurses (APN) interventions; and (b) determine if problems and APN interventions differed by women's medical diagnosis (diabetes, hypertension, preterm labor). DESIGN AND METHODS: Content analysis of 85 interaction logs created by APNs during a randomized clinical trial in which half of physician-provided prenatal care was substituted with APN-provided prenatal care in the women's homes. Patients' problems and APN interventions were classified with the Omaha Classification System. FINDINGS: A total of 212,835 health problems and 212,835 APN interventions were identified. The dominant antenatal problems were physiologic (59.2%) and health-related behaviors (33.3%); postpartum were physiologic (44.0%) and psychosocial problems (31.6%). Antenatally, women with diabetes had significantly more health-related behavior problems; women with preterm labor had more physiologic problems. APN surveillance interventions predominated antenatally (65.6%) and postpartum (66.0%), followed by health teaching, guidance, and counseling both antenatally (25.4%) and postpartum (28.1%). Women with chronic hypertension required significantly more case-management interventions. CONCLUSIONS: The categories of women's problems were largely similar across medical diagnostic groups. Interventions to address women's problems ranged from assessing maternal and fetal physiologic states to teaching interpersonal relationships and self-care management to assisting with transportation and housing. Data show the range of APN knowledge and skills needed to improve maternal and infant outcomes and ultimately reduce healthcare costs in women with high-risk pregnancies.