Nursing research
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Healthcare utilization in women after abdominal surgery for ovarian cancer.
Women undergoing surgery for ovarian cancer are severely ill and are high users of health services. Contributing to these increased utilization rates are the multiple modalities used to treat ovarian cancer and the complications and side effects from those treatments. ⋯ Women in the intervention group appropriately used the emergency room to manage their problems after hours, whereas more women in the attention control group reported significantly more primary care visits. These findings highlight the need for healthcare providers representing various disciplines to coordinate services across specialties, especially for women who have depressive symptoms.
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Previous research shows that numerous child, parent, and procedural variables affect children's distress responses to procedures. Cognitive-behavioral interventions such as distraction are effective in reducing pain and distress for many children undergoing these procedures. ⋯ The findings can be used to identify children at risk for high distress during procedures. This is the first study to find a relationship between child behavioral distress and level of parent distraction coaching.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Supplementing relaxation and music for pain after surgery.
Most postoperative patients have unrelieved pain despite the use of patient-controlled analgesia. Nurses need additional effective modalities. Relaxation and music (RM), in addition to analgesics, have been shown to reduce pain more than do analgesics alone. ⋯ Patient teaching did not result in less pain and did not support the theoretical proposition that PT reduces pain. However, the immediate RM-Effects supported the proposition that nonpharmacological adjuvants to analgesics can ease pain without adding side effects.
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Although critical care nurses are expected to focus on providing life-sustaining measures, many intensive care patients actually receive end-of-life care. ⋯ Both the Values of Intensive Care Nurses for End-of-Life and the Behaviors of Intensive Care Nurses for End-of-Life were found to have conceptually linked factors and acceptable internal consistency estimates ([alpha]). However, test-retest estimates were inconsistent, suggesting that further work needs to be done on the stability of these instruments.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Active Balance Childhood program for improving coping and quality of life in Chinese American children.
Interventions to teach children healthy and effective coping skills could help reduce their risk of becoming overweight. However, few studies have examined whether an intervention that teaches coping strategies in weight management can influence children's coping behavior and psychosocial well-being. ⋯ This culturally appropriate behavioral intervention was effective in promoting healthy coping and in improving quality of life in Chinese American children. Its utility for both optimal weight and overweight children suggests potential application of the intervention in a broad range of populations.