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Aim. To report a pilot study for the development and validation of an instrument to measure quality in historical research papers. Background. There are no set criteria to assess historical papers published in nursing journals. Design. A three phase mixed method sequential confirmatory design. Methods. In 2012, we used a three-phase approach to item generation and content evaluation. In phase 1, we consulted nursing historians using an online survey comprising three open-ended questions and revised the items. In phase 2, we evaluated the revised items for relevance with expert historians using a 4-point Likert scale and Content Validity Index calculation. In phase 3, we conducted reliability testing of the instrument using a 3-point Likert scale. Results. In phase 1, 121 responses were generated via the online survey and revised to 40 interrogatively phrased items. In phase 2, five items with an Item Content Validity Index score of ≥07 remained. In phase 3, responses from historians resulted in 100% agreement to questions 1, 2 and 4 and 89% and 78%, respectively, to questions 3 and 5. Conclusion. Items for the QSHRP have been identified, content validated and reliability tested. This scale improves on previous scales, which over-emphasized source criticism. However, a full-scale study is needed with nursing historians to increase its robustness.

Aim This paper presents a discussion of the history of nurse imagery in the context of recent career choice research and the need for contemporary images for nursing recruitment. Background The critical and growing shortage of nurses is a global concern. Understanding how individuals come to know nursing as a career choice is of critical importance. Stereotypical imaging and messaging of the nursing profession have been shown to shape nurses' expectations and perceptions of nursing as a career, which has implications for both recruitment and retention. Data Sources Relevant research and literature on nurse imagery in relation to career choice and recruitment were identified through a search of the CINAHL, PsychINFO, Sociological Abstracts, PubMed; Medline and Embase databases from 1970–2012. Discussion Historical images of nurses and nursing remain prevalent in society today and continue to influence the choice of nursing as a career among the upcoming generation of nurses. Students interested in nursing may be dissuaded from choosing it as a career based on negative, stereotypical images, especially those that position the profession as inferior to medicine. Implications for Nursing Understanding the evolution and perpetuation of popular images and messages in relation to the profession has implications for not only how we recruit and retain future generations of professional nurses but also holds implications for interprofessional collaboration between nursing and other health disciplines. Conclusion Strategies for future recruitment and socialization within the nursing and the health professions need to include contemporary and realistic imaging of both health professional roles and practice settings.

Aims: This paper presents a discussion of historical scholarship published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Background: The Journal of Advanced Nursing provides a forum for disseminating high-quality research and scholarship. For over 35 years, scholars have used the Journal of Advanced Nursing to disseminate research into aspects of nursing, including nursing history. Data sources: The data source was Wiley Online electronic database for the Journal of Advanced Nursing for the period 1976–December 2011. Discussion: Relative to other academic concerns, nursing history represents a topic of limited concern to nursing scholars, as evidenced in published scholarship in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. The trends in historical scholarship in the journal have been on disciplinary development, the place and context of practice, and gendered relationships. While these are legitimate academic concerns, they suggest a lack of attention to clinical practice in historical research, that which confers social legitimacy on the discipline. Implications for nursing: Nursing derives its social legitimacy, in part, through its history, including reliable accounts of the legacy of nursing work in the development of healthcare systems. Disciplinary development in nursing is advanced by giving greater prominence to nursing history in nursing scholarship, including the history of nursing practice Conclusions: Relative to other academic concerns, nursing scholarship affords little prominence to the topic of nursing history and less still to the history of practice, as evidenced in the outputs of one of nursing's major organs of scholarship. Not to assign due importance to the history of nursing and its practice demonstrates nursing's lack of disciplinary maturity.

Aim To show the development of an emerging nursing profession through the eyes of Louisa May Alcott and Hospital Sketches. Background In Hospital Sketches, Louisa May Alcott recounts her experiences when she worked as a nurse of injured soldiers during the American Civil War, in an autobiographically and masked-referential way, which allows her to negotiate between transgression and convention. Unlike other reviews, in this paper the relevance of nursing remains highlighted. Design Discussion paper. Data sources Existing literature in databases, history books and our own reading of facts. Implications for nursing Illuminating overlooked meanings hidden in nurses' personal sources enables to approach their contribution to history, improve their visibility and project the future of nursing. Nursing care, whether domestic or professional, was and remains a catalyst for change. Conclusion Through Alcott's words, we understand the transition of nursing care as a gradual extension of the middle-class woman's domestic role and a progressive definition of nurses' identity. In particular, we highlight how certain professional nursing nuances which appear in the text are compatible with the gradual extension of the boundaries of women's domesticity. Furthermore, Alcott's use of literary devices reveals the delicate balance between women's domestic role and some new nursing professional features, which anticipates nursing professionalization.

The history of nursing is, itself, a fit subject for research. It is unclear what would constitute history in this case, its time frame or its methodology. It is also the case that the purpose of history needs exploration, since it can meet many goals, including the goal of professionalization. This paper explores these issues in some detail, using examples from the literature in the history of nursing. It explores historical inquiry and purpose and the problems of sources. The paper also addresses the relationship between the history of nursing and nursing theory and questions whether existing historical scholarship is integrated with or is outwith mainstream nursing theory. The paper questions the relevance of the history of nursing and suggests that the history of caring may offer one way through history to nursing theory.

The two goals of a 5-year nursing science project at the State University of Utrecht were the establishment of graduate nursing science studies and a nursing research programme. The project formally started on 1 January 1987 and is now nearing completion. This paper builds on a paper previously published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. It first describes the history of nursing science in The Netherlands and sets out to demonstrate how the Utrecht goals were achieved.

Comfort is a term that has a significant historical and contemporary association with nursing. Since the time of Nightingale, it is cited as designating a desirable outcome of nursing care. Comfort is found in nursing science, for example in diagnostic taxonomies, and in references to the art of nursing, as when practice is described. Roy, Orlando, Watson, Paterson and others use comfort in major nursing theories. The term can signify both physical and mental phenomena and it can be used as a verb and a noun. However, because comfort has many different meanings, the reader has had the burden of deciding if the term is meant in one of its ordinary language senses or if its context reveals some special nursing sense. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the semantics and extension of the term 'comfort' in order to clarify its use in nursing practice, theory and research. The semantic analysis begins with ordinary language because the common meanings of the term are the primary ones used in nursing practice and are the origin of technical nursing usages. Comfort is discussed as the term is found in nursing, including texts, standards of care, diagnoses and theory. An account of patient needs assessment is used to cull three technical senses of the term from its ordinary language meanings. After contrasting these senses in order to justify their separateness, they are shown to reflect differing aspects of therapeutic contexts. Defining attributes of the three senses are then explicated and presented in table format. The last section of the paper addresses some of the ways that the extensions of the senses can be measured.

This paper is based on an address delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on 6 May 1975, as part of the American bicentennial celebrations. The history of nursing in America is traced over two centuries—from 1776, when nursing was nothing more than neighbourly assistance rendered by unprepared amateurs, to the present day, when nursing has reached a highly professional status. The influences of the revolutionary and civil wars and legislative and social changes on nursing and the training of nurses are recorded and discussed. The major contribution to the history of American nursing made by the American Nurses' Association is conceded. Its continued contributions to the extension and development of nursing as a profession, to the education of nurses, and to support for the principle that health care is a right, are all documented. The paper is a concise and well-referenced synopsis of the development of nursing in the USA during its first 200-year history, advancing from ‘a most indefinite quantity’ to ‘the largest professional group among the health occupations’.

Background. The history of nursing is almost exclusively a history of women's accomplishments despite the fact that, as early as the fourth and fifth centuries, men have worked as nurses. This perpetuates the notion of men nurses as anomalies. It also provides insight into the gendered nature of nursing and nurses’ work within patriarchal culture. Aim. This paper examines the history of men in nursing in Canada, Britain and the United States of America, and offer insights into the ways in which gender relations and the ideological designation of nursing as women's work have excluded, limited and, conversely, advanced the careers of men nurses. Method. A search of the literature was carried out using CINAHL, PubMed and Sociological Abstracts databases. Search words included: male nurses, history, nursing, Canada, Britain, United Kingdom and USA. Discussion. Men's participation in nursing reveals that prevailing definitions of masculinity have acted as a powerful barrier to men crossing the gender divide and entering the profession. At extraordinary times such as war and acute nursing shortages, gender boundaries are negotiable. For those men who have crossed over into nursing, a gendered division of labour is evidenced by men nurses’ long-standing association with mental health nursing and, more recently, with their disproportionate attainment of masculine-congruent leadership and specialty positions. Conclusion. Failure to recognize men's participation in nursing leaves men nurses with little information about their professional background and historical position. It also maintains the invisibility of gender relations that have shaped the experience of men and women nurses alike. Such relations, understood within their broader social context, remain poorly understood and hence uninterrupted, to the detriment of nurses and the profession of nursing.

AIM: To explore nurses' archived accounts of Matron Muriel Powell's management and leadership style and the impact of this on the implementation and sustainability of innovation in the workplace. BACKGROUND: In popular discourse, the matron has become an emblem of leadership. Although the title disappeared in the UK in the late 1960s as part of the re-organization recommended by the Salmon Report, it re-appeared in 2002 in an attempt to improve care standards by reasserting a strong nursing presence and clinical leadership role. DESIGN: Secondary data analysis using qualitative thematic analysis. METHODS: This paper draws on interview data held in the 'Nurses Voices' archive. The interview transcripts of 132 nurses who trained or worked at St George's hospital in 1920-1980 were analysed in depth between March 2011-January 2012 and themes were generated inductively by grouping together emergent codes in the data with similar meaning. RESULTS: Looking back, the nurses recalled strong memories of the leadership of Matron Powell. Her presence emerged as a significant influence throughout the interviews. Two resonant themes were identified: innovation and open communication. CONCLUSIONS: Through her visibility and direct access with patients and staff, Dame Muriel Powell showed what we would now call transformative leadership qualities. Her leadership created a culture of open communication and innovation that initiated change in the organization and the nursing workforce. Looking back and learning from historical figures can deepen understanding and provide pointers for the nurse leaders of today.

As advances in nursing science and research impact upon nursing education and clinical practice, new ways of looking at phenomena have led to a re-examination and refinement of the traditional concepts: person, environment, health and nursing. This evolving pattern of intellectual growth holds promise for the discipline of nursing through the advancement of knowledge based upon scientific inquiry into the practice of nursing. This paper discusses nursing as a discipline by examining the development of a unique body of knowledge from three viewpoints: historical past, current perspectives and future direction.

This paper re-examines the role of the early nineteenth century nurses, conventionally depicted in nursing histories as the well-meaning but untrained Catholic nursing nuns or, in post-Reformation Europe, servants and fellow patients. It will be argued here that professional and capable nursing had begun to transform the care of the sick poor and to demonstrate its importance to the success of medical/surgical innovation long before Florence Nightingale and her call to Scutari. Moreover, the case is put that the emergence of nineteenth century forms of care for the sick occurred in response to the pressing problems of population management in Ireland, Great Britain and North America. The pastoral concerns of the first Irish nurses, with their expertise in both the spiritual and material domains, provided the prototype for what was to follow: a spiritual form of life that addressed the governmental concerns of its time. Finally, it is argued that given the overt moral imperatives of nineteenth century nurses of all persuasions, the depiction of nursing history as a crossing from the religious to the secular domain is challenged.

During the last 35 years, nursing knowledge has known a surge in its development. Following the evolution of the scientific world, nursing first embraced the logical empiricist perspective of discovering and knowing. Historicism and, more recently, critical social theory have been explored as alternative ways of making knowledge in nursing. This paper discusses the evolution of nursing knowledge, considering its past and present activities. The authors suggest that a cooperative attitude amongst nurses, and a coexistence of various paradigms of knowledge development characterize the future of nursing. Nursing knowledge should be understood as a stage in its evolution and growth. The result of this process will never be a final static body of knowledge. Knowledge expansion will be encouraged through a process of integrating components from different research traditions, such that a multidimensional understanding of phenomena will be realised.