Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Sharon M Valente.
Research highlights interventions that improve patient care; however, this evidence does not consistently show up in practice. To decrease adverse events and increase patient and referral satisfaction, home care agencies must find ways to keep their clinical staff up to date. This article describes how one agency created a journal club that has met with success.
A beautiful face, lithe body, and appealing genitalia are alluring in Western Society. Plastic surgery to repair a defect or improve sexual appeal often elicits the patient's anxiety as well as excitement. The health care professional's empathic and therapeutic support is essential to improving post surgical recovery. The effectiveness of outcome and patient satisfaction often rest on how well the surgery meets the patient's needs. Anxiety is a major factor that influences whether patients have realistic expectations for surgery and whether the patient needs constant reassurance and support from the nurse. The nurse needs to use scientific knowledge and strategies for screening, assessment, and management of anxious patients. Depending on their level of anxiety, patients benefit from diverse nursing interventions to treat anxiety, provide resources, and recommend referrals for those with anxiety disorders.
PURPOSE: To describe the incidence, assessment, and management of intimate partner violence (IPV) from a cultural perspective emphasizing the values, strengths, and health care needs of African-American women. DATA SOURCES: Review of the published scientific literature, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) supplemented with hypothetical cases. CONCLUSIONS: Violence is a social and public health emergency affecting over 10% of the population during their lives and 22% of women who are physically assaulted by an intimate. Roughly 3 million to 4.4 million women report being battered annually, although this is a low estimate. Neither gender nor age nor sexual orientation protects one from IPV. Violent crime causes 2.2 million known injuries with a huge cost in hospital days and other expenses. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Women often hesitate to report violence; health care professionals detect as few as 5% of battered women. Women suffer for months and years before accurate diagnosis. Clinicians need to be vigilant in case finding, education, prevention, and treatment. Cultural differences in values and beliefs, and behavioral norms influence evaluation, treatment, and referral.
Tracking your manuscript is one way to help the review process go smoothly and it keeps you actively involved. Verifying the arrival of your manuscript and politely asking for feedback helps reduce needless frustrations. If a journal encourages you to revise and resubmit, the chances of acceptance and publication improve.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Research improves nursing and patient care outcomes. However, program managers and educators search for ways to help the busy bedside nurse recognize clinical problems and use research. Despite the new evidence about pain assessment, wound care, pain-free injections, preoperative fasting, and preoperative shaving, many nurses do not apply this knowledge to their practice. Barriers to using research include a lack of readable reports and role models who support and encourage staff to demonstrate evidence-based practice. One creative solution is the research-based fact sheet with recommendations for practice. This article reviews the literature and outlines a strategy for improving evidence-based practice.
TOPIC: A patient's suicide may threaten the nurse's health and work performance until grief and mourning are transformed. PURPOSE: To examine the literature, bereavement theories, and recommendations for supporting nurses' bereavement. SOURCES: Bereavement literature on Medline, CINAHL, and PsychInfo from 1965-2001, and clinicians' and nurses' responses to a patient's death by suicide. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses need a support system to help them cope with grief after a patient's suicide. Having knowledge of bereavement and using therapeutic support can help prevent burnout or stress and can encourage constructive coping strategies that transform grief. Grieving is facilitated when nurses recognize their own mortality and take time to process their grief.
TOPIC: Identification and management of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). PURPOSE: To increase advanced practice clinicians' awareness of the prevalence, screening tools, diagnostic criteria, differential diagnosis, and therapeutic management of OCD. SOURCES: Published literature. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses have a pivotal role in teaching self-management techniques to people with OCD.
TOPIC: Nurse psychotherapists often feel poorly prepared to cope with a patient's death by suicide. The psychotherapist may identify with the family, feel sad at the death, and be plagued by feelings of guilt and responsibility. PURPOSE: A case study illustrates the meaning of the loss to the therapist and the influence on professional identity, self-confidence, and self-esteem. SOURCES: Case study and review of the literature from Medline, psychinfo, and CINAHL. CONCLUSIONS: Therapists experience their own grief as a lack of omnipotence over suicide, and the fear of their colleagues' responses. Understanding bereavement and factors influencing bereavement may help therapists facilitate and reduce negative consequences of their own grief.
Depressive disorders are common among 20% to 32% of people with HIV disease but are frequently unrecognized. Major depression is a recurring and disabling illness that typically responds to medications, cognitive psychotherapy, education, and social support. A large percentage of the emotional distress and major depression associated with HIV disease results from immunosuppression, treatment, and neuropsychiatric aspects of the disease. People with a history of intravenous drug use also have increased rates of depressive disorders. Untreated depression along with other comorbid conditions may increase costly clinic visits, hospitalizations, substance abuse, and risky behaviors and may reduce adherence to treatment and quality of life. HIV clinicians need not have psychiatric expertise to play a major role in depression. Screening tools improve case finding and encourage early treatment. Effective treatments can reduce major depression in 80% to 90% of patients. Clinicians who mistake depressive signs and symptoms for those of HIV disease make a common error that increases morbidity and mortality.