Innovate 4 Change: An interdisciplinary nursing student-led hackathon.

BACKGROUND: Health care challenges are increasingly complex. Nursing student involvement in hackathons can help create a sustainable culture of innovation and leadership within nursing. PURPOSE: To host and evaluate the inaugural Innovate 4 Change Hackathon. METHODS: Nursing student-led interdisciplinary teams worked together for 5 weeks to solve pressing health care problems, ultimately pitching ideas for prizes. FINDINGS: Seven teams with 33 students represented multiple disciplines. For nearly 70% of participants, hackathons were a new experience. Nursing students were on every team, representing 50% of the participants. DISCUSSION: Nurse-led hackathons help students gain experience in innovative problem-solving and elevate confidence. They provide a structured format to learn about nursing innovation, design thinking, and business models while also challenging students to address problems related to health equity, clinical care, health care delivery, and policy.

Barriers to End-of-Life Care for LGBT Persons in the Absence of Legal Marriage or Adequate Legal Documentation.

End-of-life care has attracted increased attention in recent years due to increases in both the number and mean age of the world's population; however, the experiences of LGBT persons during end-of-life care remain understudied. Given the health disparities and barriers to care experienced throughout the life course of LGBT persons, the frequent involvement of legal spouses in end-of-life care, and the recency of marriage equality, it can be surmised that LGBT persons might experience significantly different barriers to their desired end-of-life care compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. This article aims to synthesize what is known about these barriers, particularly in the absence of legal marriage or protective legal documentation. Of two hundred and twelve articles reviewed, twenty-three were included for analysis. Common barriers that emerged were discriminatory laws (e.g., prohibitions against same-sex marriage) and policies, lack of decision-making capacity, lack of knowledge regarding patient wishes, lack of visitation rights, challenges from biological next of kin, and discrimination and psychological distress. Recommendations for future research are provided based on gaps that were identified. These include increased research on transgender persons and bisexual persons, and on providers of end-of-life care. In addition, the recommendations take into account that important legislative and policy changes occurred after the period in which the studies reviewed here were published. The impact of those changes cannot be reported in this study and should be determined by future studies. This synthesis provides the contextual understanding necessary for research and improvement in this vastly understudied area.

Developing a Hypnotic Relaxation Intervention to Improve Body Image: A Feasibility Study.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To determine the content, feasibility, and best outcome of a mind-body intervention involving self-directed hypnotic relaxation to target body image.
. DESIGN: A five-week, uncontrolled, unblinded feasibility intervention study.
. SETTING: Behavioral therapy offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waco, Texas.
. SAMPLE: 10 female breast cancer survivors and 1 breast and gynecologic cancer survivor. 
. METHODS: Adult women with a history of breast and gynecologic cancer and no major psychiatric history were eligible. The intervention included four face-to-face sessions with a research therapist lasting 40-60 minutes, logged home practice, one telephone check-in call at week 5, and one intervention feedback telephone call to complete the study. Descriptive statistics and paired t-tests were used to test feasibility and content validity.
. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: Stress from body changes as measured by the Impact of Treatment Scale, sexual function as measured by the Female Sexual Function Index, and sexual self-image as measured by the Sexual Self-Schema Scale for women were the variables of interest.
. FINDINGS: The intervention content was confirmed. Changes in scores from the baseline to week 5 suggested that stress from body changes decreased and sexual self-schema and function improved during the intervention. Nine of the 11 women were satisfied with the intervention, and all 11 indicated that their body image improved. 
. CONCLUSIONS: Hypnotic relaxation therapy shows promise for improving body image and, in doing so, improving sexual health in this population. Additional testing of this intervention is warranted.
. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Hypnotic relaxation therapy is feasible to improve body image and sexual health in women diagnosed with cancer and may be an important intervention that could be offered by nurses and other behavioral therapists.