Search

In New Zealand evidence based practice is seen as fundamental to safe practice, professional accountability and important to ensuring best possible outcomes for patients and consumers of health care services. The Nursing Council of New Zealand states that nurses must provide care based on best available evidence and best practice. However, it is not clear how nurses understand research and evidence based practice and how it is recognized as part of their practice. The aim of this study was to explore the understanding of nurses working in a tertiary level paediatric health care facility, of research and attitudes, understanding and utilisation of evidence based practice. A descriptive self-report anonymous survey questionnaire was utilized and included quantitative and qualitative questions on attitudes, knowledge and barriers related to research and evidence based practice utilization. Six hundred paediatric nurses were invited to participate with a response rate of 188 (32%). Data were entered into SSPS for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to report demographic data, response rates, and scores on the quantitative responses. Descriptive content analysis was applied to the qualitative responses. Cross tabulations (Kendall Tau-b correlations) were used to measure the significance and strength of relationships between variables. All assumptions for statistical testing were met. Findings show that nurses see research and evidence based practice as important for improving patient care and nurses felt they had a basic knowledge of research. However less than 40% of nurses felt confident to undertake research or the evidence based process steps. Barriers to undertaking research/evidence based practice included time, access to technology and data bases, and support from colleagues. Although nurse's value evidence based practice, translation into practice remains challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physiological risks of ketamine have been well researched, yet for health professionals (HPs) undertaking paediatric ketamine sedation, questions of benefit and harm remain. Research question: What are health care professional's experiences of undertaking ketamine sedation with children? Methodology: Hermeneutic narrative. Methods: The study comprised hermeneutic narrative analysis of stories from seven HPs in nursing, medicine, paramedicine, and play therapy. Findings: The theme, "seeking to control and protect" reveals the chaotic nature of paediatric emergency work and how ketamine can deliver control. The second theme "working in the dark" acknowledges that HPs try to balance perceived benefit and harm, adopting "dream-seeding" in an attempt to mitigate potentially negative psychotropic events. Conclusion: The study recommends further research into children's experiences of ketamine sedation and the use of dream-seeding to mitigate negative emergence phenomena. It also recommends education for clinicians to increase awareness of the potential for non-physiological risk and harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient advocacy is central to the nursing profession yet a sense of certainty about the concept, its meaning and its implications for nursing practice remains elusive. Aim: This scholarly paper examines the concept of patient advocacy and its relevance to the nursing profession in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Design: A broad historical overview of the evolution of the role of advocacy in nursing practice is provided including factors that encourage or discourage nurses to practice patient advocacy. Conclusions: This paper highlights the gap between the ideal of patient advocacy and the realities of everyday nursing practice. The responsibility for enacting advocacy sits with both individual practitioners and the organizations nurses work within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years ago obesity was rarely seen in children but is now described as a world wide pandemic. Previous research has focused on school age children; however, researchers have now identified critical moments of development during uterine life and early infancy where negative factors or insults could cause permanent changes in the structure and function of tissues and lead to epigenetic changes. Obesity in preschool children can cause premature and long term chronic health problems; has been associated with academic and social difficulties in kindergarten children; difficulty with social relationships; increased feelings of sadness, loneliness and anxiety; and negative self image in children as young as 5 years of age. The importance of identifying children under the age of five with obesity and associated risks is important yet less than half of health professionals intervene in cases of preschool obesity. This paper explores the concerns around antenatal and preschool obesity and the challenges for nurses and midwives in assessing and providing appropriate interventions for children and families in community settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]