The Implementation and Evaluation of an Innovative Clinical Immersion Experience for Undergraduate Nursing Students.

ABSTRACT: The demand for clinical placement sites for nursing students requires the development of alternative clinical settings. This study aimed to evaluate an innovative learning experience for nursing students at the World Scout Jamboree. Nineteen students and four faculty were assigned to base camp medical facilities, providing care for more than 45,000 campers. Student pre- and posttests reported significant increases in cultural awareness, communication skills, and clinical problem-solving ability; students rated interprofessional teamwork highly. Findings reveal promising direction for use of alternative clinical sites to fill the gap in clinical placements while offering unique learning experiences.

Perceptions of Asthma Quality of Life in Children and Parent Dyads in Two Rural Counties in West Virginia.

This study examines perceived quality of life (QOL) in a convenience sample of children (aged 7-11) with asthma and their parents from two schools in rural West Virginia. Forty-nine child-parent dyads representing 25 males and 24 females completed the study. The PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module was utilized to separately measure child and parent perceptions of various dimensions of pediatric, asthma-specific, health-related QOL. Dimensions of the tool were scored separately and included symptoms, treatment, worry, and communication. The mean module dimension scores for children ranged from 63.27 to 80.47 and for parents, the range was from 61.26 to 79.79, with higher scores indicating higher QOL. Parents of male children perceived their son's QOL to be higher than that of female children in the symptoms and treatment dimensions. Strong relationships occurred between the child's worry and the other three dimensions as well as between the symptoms and the treatment dimensions. For the dyads, the only significant relationship was between the child and the adult treatment dimensions. With the well-documented burden of asthma in school-aged populations, information regarding the QOL of child and parent dyads will enhance school nurses' ability to improve health and educational outcomes in schools.

Psychosocial variables and self-rated health in young adult obese women.

AIM: The aim of this study is to describe relationships among self-rated health, stress, sleep quality, loneliness, and self-esteem, in obese young adult women. BACKGROUND: Obesity has steadily increased among young adults and is a major predictor of self-rated health. METHODS: A sample of 68 obese (BMI 30 or higher, mean 35), young (18-34 years, mean 22) adult women were recruited from a health center. Survey data were gathered and analyzed using descriptive and bivariate procedures to assess relationships and group differences. RESULTS: Scores reflected stress, loneliness, poor sleep quality, and poor self-esteem. There were positive correlations among stress, loneliness, and sleep quality and, a high inverse correlation between loneliness and self-esteem. Those who ranked their health as poor differed on stress, loneliness, and self-esteem when compared to those with rankings of good/very good. CONCLUSIONS: Assessing and addressing stress, loneliness, sleep quality and self-esteem could lead to improved health outcomes in obese young women.

Preliminary testing of an asthma distance education program (ADEP) for school nurses in Appalachia.

Asthma remains one of the most challenging chronic illnesses faced by school nurses both nationally and in the State of West Virginia. There is a clear need to provide ongoing continuing asthma education to school nurses. However, nurses face many barriers to receiving this education. The purpose of this pilot project was to develop and evaluate distance learning technology as a method to deliver continuing asthma education to school nurses in West Virginia. A sample of 20 school nurses from 2 counties in West Virginia participated in the study using the Wimba live classroom distance learning program. Significant modest improvements were found in both the intervention groups compared to a control group postintervention. The results of this pilot study are promising and show that distance learning technology could be a viable solution for school nurses to receive asthma continuing education.