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This paper provides an overview of the growth of complementary/alternative medicine in the United Kingdom, its relevance to nurses, the relationship between holism and complementary therapies, and a call for more research.

Jane Buckle presents the results of a randomised, double-blind trial of two essential oils of two different species of lavender, topically applied on post-cardiotomy patients. The emotional and behavioural stress levels of 28 patients were evaluated pre- and post-treatment on two consecutive days. The therapeutic effects of the two lavenders appeared to be different: one was almost twice as effective as the other, thereby disproving the hypothesis that aromatherapy, using topical application of essential oils, is effective purely because of touch, massage or placebo.

Economic constraints, the information explosion, and advancement of scientific theories have resulted in the need for nurses to document their unique contribution to health care through validation of nursing resources consumed by patients. However, various classification systems have not predicted nursing resources well. This study reviews the theoretical frameworks, reliability, validity, and utility of nursing acuity and severity systems. It proposes a conceptual model for a new nursing classification system to be used for the validation of nursing resources, as the basis of a reimbursement system for nursing services, and for multiple practical and theoretical applications.

To address the question of quantification of severity of illness on a wide scale, the Computerized Severity Index (CSI) was developed by a research team at the Johns Hopkins University. This article describes an initial assessment of some aspects of the validity and reliability of the CSI on a sample of 2,378 patients within 27 high-volume DRGs from five teaching hospitals. The 27 DRGs predicted 27% of the variation in LOS, while DRGs adjusted for Admission CSI scores predicted 38% and DRGs adjusted for Maximum CSI scores throughout the hospital stay predicted 54% of this variation. Thus, the Maximum CSI score increased the predictability of DRGs by 100%. We explored the impact of including a 7-day cutoff criterion along with the Maximum CSI score similar to a criterion used in an alternative severity of illness measure. The DRG/Maximum CSI score's predictive power increased to 63% when the 7-day cutoff was added to the CSI definition. The Admission CSI score was used to predict in-hospital mortality and correlated R = 0.603 with mortality. The reliability of Admission and Maximum CSI data collection was high, with agreement of 95% and kappa statistics of 0.88 and 0.90, respectively.