Journal of advanced nursing
-
Development of a patient-orientated instrument to measure service quality in outpatient departments.
To describe three stages in the development of an instrument to measure service quality from the patients' perspective in hospital outpatient departments. ⋯ The instrument developed is general to the extent that it is suitable for assessing service quality improvement needs in individual units and for making cross-departmental comparisons.
-
The aim of this study was to describe nurses' use of selected nonpharmacological methods in relieving 8-12-year-old children's postoperative pain in hospital. ⋯ The nurses used versatile nonpharmacological methods in children's postoperative pain relief, although some defects could be observed. More research is needed on the methods used by nurses to relieve children's pain in different patient groups and the factors which hinder or promote nurses' use of pain alleviation methods in the clinical practice.
-
This article presents the results of an ethnographic study exploring how teenagers negotiated motherhood. The main aims of the study were to explore how the young women negotiated motherhood and how they constructed their own identities and relationships through teenage parenting. ⋯ It was concluded that becoming a sole-supporting mother during the teenage years was a difficult struggle for the young women, because of their youth, their lack of preparation for motherhood and their reliance on welfare supports. In addition, they experienced negative public attitudes directed towards them wherever they went, and this included their visits to community child health centres. Recommendations are made for nurses to take a different approach when working with teenage mothers to help ameliorate the negative impact of poor parenting.
-
The aims of this study were to describe the number, kind, and intensity of caregiving activities performed by individuals who assumed caregiving responsibilities, as youngsters, for adults with chronic physical illnesses; to explore the meaning and effects of the caregiving experience on those individuals; and to examine positive and negative effects of caregiving then and now. ⋯ Professional caregivers should raise questions in their practice regarding involvement in caregiving by both adults and youngsters. If youngsters participate in caregiving in the home, they need to receive adequate information regarding care and the illness trajectory. Family-related research including the long-term effects of such experiences on the youngsters and their families is recommended.
-
Burnout in nursing is of both individual and organizational concern with ramifications for well-being, job performance, absenteeism and turnover. Burnout is rarely assessed as part of a comprehensive model of occupational stress, a short-coming which this paper attempts to redress. ⋯ The paper discusses the implications of the findings in terms of a comprehensive approach to intervention aimed at minimizing the risk of burnout in psychiatric nurses. Such an approach will involve interventions at the organizational and individual level.