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Aim. To describe the findings from a qualitative study exploring acute care nurses' experiences with patient falls. Background. Patient falls continue to be a problem in acute care settings for nurses at the point of care. Despite the growing body of knowledge related to risk factors and interventions for fall prevention, minimal attention has been given to nurses' perspectives of patient falls. Design. A qualitative descriptive design was used. Method. Focus group discussions were conducted with nurses working on a cross-section of inpatient acute care settings. Audio-taped sessions were transcribed and analysed thematically. Results. Nurses described their experience of falls as 'knowing the patient as safe', an ongoing affirmation that the patient was free from harm. In this focused, narrowly defined and highly specific knowing, nurses employed the key strategies of assessment, monitoring and communicating. Variable conditions influenced whether these strategies were effective in giving nurses the knowledge they needed to keep the patient safe. When strategies failed to provide nurses with knowledge of their patients as safe and patients fell, this created considerable stress for nurses and prompted them to use a range of coping strategies. Conclusion. Knowing the patient as safe has the potential to resolve the tension between patient safety and independence. The critical, often taken for granted, activities used by nurses in this knowing must be expanded to include the meaning falls have for patients and attend to factors beyond nurses control such as environmental redesign and staffing. Relevance to clinical practice. Nurses play an important role in fall prevention through knowing the patient as safe but must be supported through the use of a multi-faceted approach extending from the individual nurse to the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing has been concerned primarily with the visible aspects of health promotion and has shown little regard for what is invisible. Yet the hidden ideology powerfully shapes current approaches to health promotion. This paper examines and makes visible the ideology of individual responsibility which is embedded in individualistic health promotion, the primary orientation to health promotion. Ways in which this ideology is perpetuated within nursing curricula are described. Concrete strategies are proposed that may be considered by nurse educators as they seek to prepare students in health promotion, with particular emphasis on strategies that highlight its ideological underpinnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors present their analysis of the concept of mobility as a starting point for the development of relevant theory. Multiple uses of the concept are considered and provisional criteria identified. Case examples, together with antecedents and consequences, of the concept are presented. Finally, research questions that would form the basis of fieldwork have been generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing and widespread use of central line catheterization in clinical practice. Nevertheless, there is a growing awareness and concern about the escalating rate of infection related to central lines, especially in those patients receiving total parenteral nutrition. This paper reviews selected studies which have identified factors contributing to central line infection. Factors relating to all areas of catheter management, including insertion, maintenance and removal have been implicated in central line infections. Nurses who are involved to varying degrees in all phases of central line management, play an important role in infection control. An understanding of infection-related factors as the first step needed to effect changes in procedures and protocols in the care of patients with central lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]