Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to K Teasdale.
Nurses need to use a wider range of anxiety management strategies than simply information-giving. Interventions must take into account patients' coping styles and views of their situation. The use of critical incidents to promote reflection on experience offers a practical way to improve anxiety management skills.
A PREP profile records information that can help you to plan for the future. These sections of the profile will contain personal plans which do not have to be shown to others. The Rational Model of career planning provides a simple four-stage structure to analyse career choices.
This paper analyses the advocacy role of the nurse manager, defining terms and emphasizing the need for a rational appraisal of risks before advocacy is undertaken. Power analysis is offered as a theoretical basis for estimating risk and for tactical planning. Outcomes from a small-scale qualitative research study are also presented, in order to stimulate a wider debate on the principles underpinning safe and ethical practice in advocacy.
A series of British and North American research studies into information-giving and the relief of patient anxiety is reviewed. The research results are inconsistent and the theory that information relieves anxiety in hospitalized patients appears to be an oversimplification. It is argued that 'information' is conventionally viewed as a neutral and objective entity which can be transmitted to patients in semantic form through language. However, recent advances in the philosophy of language suggest that human communication depends less on the decoding of semantic information than upon the inferences which recipients draw from context. Communication, therefore, becomes a problem-solving process in which communicators selectively present what they know in order to induce recipients to infer the intended meanings. This inferential model of communication provides a theoretical basis from which research studies can be reappraised. Viewed from an inferential perspective, the results suggest that patient anxiety can be relieved more reliably by the use of re-framing and empowering interventions than by the presentation of information in a neutral way with no direct attempt to influence the inferences which patients may make.
1. Structured teaching requires written teaching plans. 2. A teaching plan should describe objectives, teaching methods and methods of assessment. 3. Explanation, demonstration and practice are key stages in teaching skills in the clinical area. 4. NVQs can be adapted to form practical teaching plans.
The 1989 White Paper 'Caring for People' announced a radical shift in the way community care was to be delivered. The changes are now upon us and will affect all people with disabilities living in the community. They will also require nurses and social workers to work more closely together.
With limited training budgets and an increasing range of training opportunities available, provider units will need to have effective training strategies. The Grantham model, described by Kevin Teasdale and colleagues, offers a clear and practical approach.
Many women who are diagnosed with breast cancer do not receive the counselling and support they require. Nurse counsellors are well-equipped to take on this responsibility, and can help women consider their treatment options.
Enrolled nurses need help in considering the new range of career options which conversion courses have opened to them. They also need assistance in planning how best to take advantage of these new opportunities. This article describes a training course run in South Lincolnshire which aims to help enrolled nurses to meet their development needs through a combination of classroom and distance learning methods.
The authors argue that there is a tension between the concepts of caring and empowerment. This tension appears in political and managerial debates over how best to run a health service, and it reappears in the clinical situation in nursing dilemmas over the presentation of information to patients. The authors review the major contributions to theory from health care literature, and use case studies to explore some of the clinical implications of these theories for nursing practice.
All too often, long-term career plans are left to chance. By assessing both personal needs and the wide variety of options open to them, nurses can embark on a structured career plan.
Successful career counselling offers more than just opportunity awareness. Counsellors must aim to help colleagues assess their own needs and requirements, matching these with openings in the job market.
Reassurance is frequently mentioned in nursing literature and in nursing practice. However, there is no generally accepted definition of its range of meanings, and some controversy over its therapeutic value. This paper uses a structured approach to present an analysis of reassurance. It identifies three main usages, and argues that it is the failure to differentiate between these usages which has caused the controversy over reassurance as a therapeutic approach in nursing.
Unless we understand what is proposed by Project 2000 and speak up for the fundamental values of nursing, the reforms will not bring about the improvements in the quality of patient care we seek. This article is the first in a new series on Project 2000.
Comparatively little is known about the stigma which attaches to psychiatric day care, as opposed to in-patient care. This study uses grounded theory to analyse the views of 21 clients of a psychiatric day unit. The results suggest that clients have difficulty in interpreting their reasons for continuing to attend the unit, and that these difficulties are connected with a fear of being labelled 'mad'. The issue of stigma management was important to the clients, and some thought that the move to a locally-based service would exacerbate problems by reducing the number of available stigma management strategies.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.