Search

Communication and collaboration skill mastery is as essential to nursing practice as expertise in clinical skills. Health profession graduates often lack the necessary communication skills to practice in a collaborative environment because they have been educated in silos with little or no interaction with other health profession students. Prelicensure interprofessional education has been suggested as a strategy for improving communication and collaboration among health profession students. Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory can be used to guide simulation-based interprofessional education, offering both a foundation and process for knowledge acquisition based on the needs of each individual learner.

Objective Trauma-focused psychological treatments are recommended as first-line treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but clinicians may be concerned that the good outcomes observed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may not generalize to the wide range of traumas and presentations seen in clinical practice. This study investigated whether Cognitive Therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) can be effectively implemented into a UK National Health Service Outpatient Clinic serving a defined ethnically mixed urban catchment area. Method A consecutive sample of 330 patients with PTSD (age 17–83) following a wide range of traumas were treated by 34 therapists, who received training and supervision in CT-PTSD. Pre and post treatment data (PTSD symptoms, anxiety, depression) were collected for all patients, including dropouts. Hierarchical linear modeling investigated candidate moderators of outcome and therapist effects. Results CT-PTSD was well tolerated and led to very large improvement in PTSD symptoms, depression and anxiety. The majority of patients showed reliable improvement/clinically significant change: intent-to-treat: 78.8%/57.3%; completer: 84.5%/65.1%. Dropouts and unreliable attenders had worse outcome. Statistically reliable symptom exacerbation with treatment was observed in only 1.2% of patients. Treatment gains were maintained during follow-up (M = 280 days, n = 220). Few of the selection criteria used in some RCTs, demographic, diagnostic and trauma characteristics moderated treatment outcome, and only social problems and needing treatment for multiple traumas showed unique moderation effects. There were no random effects of therapist on symptom improvement, but therapists who were inexperienced in CT-PTSD had more dropouts than those with greater experience. Conclusions The results support the effectiveness of CT-PTSD and suggest that trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy can be successfully implemented in routine clinical services treating patients with a wide range of traumas., Highlights • Cognitive Therapy for PTSD can be effectively implemented in routine clinical care. • The intent-to-treat analysis showed very large treatment effects. • Patients found the treatment acceptable, and the majority showed clinically significant change. • Few patient characteristics moderated treatment outcome. • Inexperienced therapists had more dropouts.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has become increasingly important in nursing. It has become a dominant philosophy in teaching research courses and it brings a new definition to the translation of science. As more has become known about EBP, it has continued to grow in its importance and significance. EBP is the foundation to many doctor of nursing practice (DNP) programs in both the advanced practice nursing and organizational foci. The purpose of this article is to define evidence-based practice competencies for advanced practice nurses, especially nurse practitioners. A corresponding teaching framework is presented. Additionally, competencies related to the DNP with aggregate systems and organizational foci are suggested. Practical experiences emanating from working within the NP competency development and framework are highlighted and described.

Women's health care in the United States has been described as unsatisfactory and falling behind the Healthy People 2010 objectives. Inadequate health care due to a shortage of providers is especially problematic for women who are poor with lower socioeconomic status. Advanced practice nurses are well suited to address this need. In this article, preceptor and academic partnerships are discussed as strategies to make more qualified women's health and infant providers available.