Loving and Giving to Others: The Spirit of the Second Mile Nursing.

ABSTRACT: The "Spirit of the Second Mile Nursing" (SSMN) has been cultivated in nurses who graduated from McCormick Faculty of Nursing, Thailand. These nurses were taught and they practice to care for clients, family members, and colleagues with compassion, consideration, love, enthusiasm, and willingness throughout the program. This study aimed to explore the SSMN concept using a Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The findings show that the SSMN concept is based on "Loving and Giving for others" principles. It consisted of three categories: the Spirit of the Second Mile nurse characteristics, nursing care, and consequences of the SSMN. Knowledge from this study provides nurses with a better understanding of the SSMN concept within the context of a Thai and American Christian view.

Participatory supervision model: building health promotion capacity among health officers and the community.

INTRODUCTION: The Thai traditional health supervision model has been developed since 1991. However, many supervisors lack supervisory knowledge and skills. This study aimed to compare and identify the strengths and challenges of two different supervision models, in order to determine their effects on enhancing the health promotion capacity of health officers in two primary care units (PCU) in Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand. METHODS: The two models were implemented at two PCU in one semi-district, Chiang Mai Province, over a six-month period. The first model involved supervisors from the district level, with the full participation of health officers at the sub-district level. The second model was designed with the addition of community involvement in the supervision process. Before implementing the models, the district supervisors attended a retraining course to enhance their supervisory knowledge and ability. Questionnaires were used to assess health officers' job satisfaction, clients' perceived service quality and care satisfaction. Semi-structured interviews and qualitative observations were used to explore the involvement of health officers and the community, and to determine the strengths and challenges of each supervisory model. RESULTS: Both before and after the intervention, the PCU health officers appeared to have good and comparable job satisfaction levels. Bivariate analysis indicated that after the intervention, both supervisory models appeared effective in terms of clients' perceived service quality and satisfaction with care, among those who utilized the PCU. However, the second model, which allowed the community to participate in the supervision process, achieved better results. The qualitative findings suggested that the involvement of health officers caused a rapid change and improvement after the supervision. The involvement of the community helped the community itself to identify problems and formulate alternatives to meet the community's needs. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows positive outcomes for two forms of participatory supervision in a rural setting. There appear to be additional positive outcomes for the model that involved community participation. To ensure successful implementation, several issues, such as the supervisor's knowledge and ability, health officer workload and supervisory communication skills, need to be improved.