Depression, Anxiety, and Resilience: The Association of Emotions With Self-care in Patients With Heart Failure.

BACKGROUND: Engaging in self-care behaviors improves outcomes in patients with heart failure. Identifying psychological factors that affect self-care behaviors and the role of resilience may inform interventions that improve outcomes. OBJECTIVES: The study objective was to determine the relationships among depression, anxiety, resilience, and self-care, including whether resilience mediates or moderates the effects of depression and anxiety on self-care. METHODS: Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to estimate the relationships of depression, anxiety, and resilience with self-care behaviors. Mediating and moderating effects of resilience on the relationships of depression and anxiety with self-care were evaluated using multiple linear regression. RESULTS: Depression and anxiety were associated with lower self-care. Higher resilience was associated with lower depression and anxiety, but resilience did not mediate or moderate the relationship of depression and anxiety with self-care. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions that foster resilience may improve outcomes by reducing anxiety and depression in patients with heart failure.

A simple guide for completing an integrative review using an example article.

The integrative review (IR) is a methodology of importance to nursing and other disciplines to evaluate and synthesize data from diverse sources to answer research questions, generate new theories, and to provide a comprehensive view of what is known regarding a topic of interest. Current, concise and introductory articles on how to conduct IRs are limited. Although a bias may exist that the IR is less rigorous than other types of literature reviews, the complexity of the search and evaluation of diverse sources increases the need for rigor to produce a well-written IR that advances evidence-based practice (EBP). This article provides a guide for students and beginning researchers to conduct this type of review by summarizing the IR into simple steps with strategies to increase rigor at each step. Use of an example IR related to acupuncture for neuropathy illustrates key points and lessons learned during the process.

Evaluating Acupuncture for the Treatment of Chemotherapy-induced Peripheral Neuropathy: An Integrative Review.

The purpose of this integrative review of the literature is to synthesize the current evidence and identify gaps in knowledge regarding the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Cochrane Review databases were searched using inclusion criteria: keywords acupuncture, cancer, and peripheral neuropathy, published in English, between 2009 and 2019. Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria. The literature indicates that acupuncture is generally well tolerated by patients with cancer, and a majority of patients with CIPN reported decreased pain and increased quality of life after receiving acupuncture treatment. A comprehensive understanding of the ability of acupuncture to treat CIPN is limited by variability of acupuncture techniques and inconsistency in measures of evaluation.

A Global Collaboration to Develop and Pilot Test a Mobile Application to Improve Cancer Pain Management in Nepal.

Introduction: Quality palliative care, which prioritizes comfort and symptom control, can reduce global suffering from non-communicable diseases, such as cancer. To address this need, the Nepalese Association of Palliative Care (NAPCare) created pain management guidelines (PMG) to support healthcare providers in assessing and treating serious pain. The NAPCare PMG are grounded in World Health Organization best practices but adapted for the cultural and resource context of Nepal. Wider adoption of the NAPCare PMG has been limited due to distribution of the guidelines as paper booklets. Methods: Building on a long-standing partnership between clinicians and researchers in the US and Nepal, the NAPCare PMG mobile application ("app") was collaboratively designed. Healthcare providers in Nepal were recruited to pilot test the app using patient case studies. Then, participants completed a Qualtrics survey to evaluate the app which included the System Usability Scale (SUS) and selected items from the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). Descriptive and summary statistics were calculated and compared across institutions and roles. Regression analyses to explore relationships (α = 0.05) between selected demographic variables and SUS and MARS scores were also conducted. Results: Ninety eight healthcare providers (n = 98) pilot tested the NAPCare PMG app. Overall, across institutions and roles, the app received an SUS score of 76.0 (a score > 68 is considered above average) and a MARS score of 4.10 (on a scale of 1 = poor, 5 = excellent). 89.8% (n = 88) "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the app will help them better manage cancer pain. Age, years of experience, and training in palliative care were significant in predicting SUS scores (p-values, 0.0124, 0.0371, and 0.0189, respectively); institution was significant in predicting MARS scores (p = 0.0030). Conclusion: The NAPCare PMG mobile app was well-received, and participants rated it highly on both the SUS and MARS. Regression analyses suggest end-user variables important to consider in designing and evaluating mobile apps in lower resourced settings. Our app design and pilot testing process illustrate the benefits of cross global collaborations to build research capacity and generate knowledge within the local context.