Reports 2000

A list of recommendations was compiled including that nurses should be able to refer patients to the pain management service in order to ensure that all patents receive the same quality of pain relief.   It is also suggested that the pain assessment tools used should be made available as a laminated card which can be attached to a nurse's ID badge to encourage the use of these tools in practice.   The use of multimodal analgesia should also be encouraged.   Several steps for improving procedural pain management are discussed.

The study tour reports on 4 models of nurse-led care in 4 different countries. The report commences with the services of Mortimer Market Centre in London, followed by the Amsterdam Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) Clinic in The Netherlands, Harbourview STD Clinic in Seattle-King County, USA, and the Sydney Sexual Health Centre in Australia. hroughout the study tour, services other than the primary study sites were visited. These observations have been reported as they contribute to the range of STD services within each state and/or country.

The study demonstrated how a community and outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy programme can be effectively provided to patients with an acute infective illness. Data on 23 patients show that the majority of patients can be safely taught how to self-administer intravenous antibiotics.

The role of the nurse, selection of patients, nurse training issues, and the types of health care providers were examined during a visit to three health care providers in the USA and two hospitals in the UK.

The aim of the study was to explore New Age Travellers' perception of health and health services, within the context of travelling life. The author's interest in New Age Travellers stemmed from professional practice as a Health Visitor and Community Development Worker, when she became aware of their difficulties in accessing essential health determinant and health services.

The sample consisted of 4 families. Each family had a child who had sustained a traumatic brain injury within the last three years;  two of the children remain in a hospital environment. The sample is biased and not statistically relevant. The data were collected by participant-observation and unstructured interviews.

The literature was from Social Anthropology, Sociology and other related human sciences. The themes reviewed from the literature are traumatic brain injury, family, parenting, disability, culture and religion.

Nurse Consultancy, and in particular the rapid development of Nurse Consultant posts around the world, has been extremely rapid within the last decade. Unfortunately there continues to be discrepancy about how these types of roles are being developed and interpreted. There are also problems of definition with the term Forensic Nursing.

The purpose of this study was to compare the roles and educational preparation of nurses working in breast care in the USA and the UK. The findings would then be available to contribute to the debate regarding the introduction of specific programmes for Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Specialists to complete in the UK.

To provide an in-depth view on how nursing roles in breast care have been set up and developed with educational support, a semi-structured interview schedule was developed. Semi-structured interviews were completed with nurses, surgeons and educators. Information on the structure of the nursing education system in the USA was also obtained.

The aim of this study was to assess the short-term benefits of an asthma camp on the quality of life of children.   The study looked at the preparation, set-up and requirements of such a camp in Canada and the UK, as well as previous research found.

This study explores the discipline practices of children living in a rural Ghanaian community. The location is a small rural village on the outskirts of Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti region in Ghana.

This report describes a travel scholarship undertaken to study quality improvement methods and tools in the USA, with a particular focus on approaches in use to improve the fundamental or essential aspects of patient care, including, for example, patient comfort, hygiene, privacy and dignity.

The study was a result of collaboration between the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta (Canada) and the School of Nursing, University of Nottingham. The intention was to carry out international exploratory work to critically examine the ways in which mental health promotion has been developed within pre-registration nursing practice.

The escalating prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) and its emergence in new and potentially untreatable forms are major threats to public health and control programmes world-wide. In the UK London has the highest rates of TB and provisional data for the year 2000 show an ongoing increase with the highest proportion of cases in London.   Compared with 15 other European cities London has the third highest incidence rate of TB.

Reports have recognised that TB primarily affects poor, socially excluded and disadvantaged groups such as homeless populations, particularly the street homeless and those using shelters and hostels.

The study scholarship was an opportunity to witness the change process and progression in the field of ethics where healthcare professionals were being empowered to make ethical decisions and support patients' rights.   The main foci of the study were two visits to different countries. The first to Wales was to examine the ethical content of Welsh National Board courses and a BSc in Nursing Studies programme. The second visit was to a Dutch hospital in order to explore a multidisciplinary work-based ethics programme.

This small-scale case study examined the bridges and barriers that affect local fathers participation in Practical Parenting Course. It explored what local fathers perceive their needs to be.

The main finding indicate that a complex array of economic and socio-cultural influences may be affecting participation, as well as institutional, situational and dispositional barriers.

Health policy changes and the modernisation of health services give opportunities to reconsider health care roles and traditional boundaries. The Department of Health's commitment to strengthening nursing contribution is evidences by the recent development of Nurse Consultant posts. Other advances nursing roles have evolved, enhancing the quality and effectiveness of health care delivery.   A review of nursing roles in the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, identified 46 services which were reported to be nurse led, but showed that many of these service developments were opportunistic and increased planning, support and evaluation would have been beneficial.

The Study utilises methodologies used to prepare a report in 1999 on behalf of the UKCC.  The UKCC report, Nursing in Secure Environments has established a framework of competencies that can be used by individual nurses and their employers to develop competency based job descriptions, identify training needs and develop appropriate programmes of learning for nurses in these sectors.

This study used the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to assess the moods and feelings of fathers and evaluated the effectiveness of its use. Twenty-two fathers completed the EPDS either during the antenatal period or one, three or six months postnatal. They were given the opportunity to discuss their responses to the questionnaire during semi-structured interviews. A mixed method approach was used, which enabled not only identification of fathers with a low mood, but also provided insight into the experiences of fathers in the months after birth.

The enquiry has emerged from the recognition that many Accident & Emergency departments are saturated to full capacity encountering excessively long trolley waits and overnight stays.   There are times when nurses are struggling to provide even the most essential care.  

The "winter crisis" has become an all year crisis with the stacking of emergency ambulances outside A&E 's occurring with increasing frequency.

This study explores the use of computers by practice nurses, during patient consultation.   The main purpose of the study was to look at the extent of computer use and secondly to find out it this occurred during patient consultation.

This ethnographic study is in two parts.   The first part consists of two individual case studies using semi-structured interview, participant observation and thematic analysis.   Two practice nurses were identified for the cast studies that would reflect opposite polar experience of computer use.   The second part of the study consists of a quantitative survey of all practice nurses in the North and Mid Hampshire Health Authority area.

The findings of the study indicate there is great diversity of computer use;  skill and knowledge within this nurse population and a range of factors are identified which influence this.

The study shows that computer use is increased when sufficient access to IM&T equipment, training and time exist, supported by IM&T practice policy and protocol.   Use of computers is more restricted when there is reduced access o IM&T equipment training and time and a lack of support for IT&M development and use with the practice.  

There is an abundance of literature relating to cardiac rehabilitation, support and secondary prevention.  However the focus of this empirical evidence is on patients who have a myocardial infarction or are pre - and post - coronary artery bypass grafting.   the literature fails to reveal what patients awaiting percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty experience and what their perceptions of their health needs are.

The aim of this study is to investigate how health professionals and patient/carers talk about health care decisions, focusing on the transfer of the elder person between acute settings into a continuing care setting in Sweden.

Collaborative Goal Setting involving all members of the rehabilitation team (including patient/carer and home care assistant) was used in all care establishments throughout Sweden.   Everyone involved with the goal setting process signed and received a copy.   The patient's progress was documented by a member of the team as the goal was achieved.   The inability to achieve a goal is identified at an early stage and other care options are considered by both patient and their carer.

Swedish Residential and Nursing Homes have both physiotherapy and occupational therapy input and patients transferred to these establishments from the acute setting expect to receive it as part of this rehabilitation to enable them to achieve their optimum level of independence.

Family is widely recognised as an important concept in chronic disease management for adults.   Family-care models however have not become widespread practice in this area and family involvement in care is restricted to children's' healthcare.

during this scholarship visits to southern Ontario, Canada, where family-focused service delivers and evaluation are carried out for adults with physical illness were visited.   During the scholarship three models of family-focused practices were observed:  family as 'focus of care', family as 'context of illness' and family as 'focus of evaluation'.