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Presenting an all-new text to demystify the research process for nursing students. With a completely user friendly approach, this book introduces the skills of research appreciation and prepares the reader to access, critically evaluate, understand, and use research based literature within the multidisciplinary context of today's health services.

Patient education is central to the practice of all health professionals. Pharmacists often use printed educational material, such as consumer medicine information, as adjuncts to verbal communication and education of patients about their medications. A relatively large proportion of the Australian population have low literacy skills and cannot read or understand written patient educational materials which are typically written at levels equivalent to year 9 and above. By using simple readability assessment tools such as RAIN, SMOG or FOG and the UK's Department of Health 'Toolkit for producing patient information' health professionals can ensure that printed educational materials are simple and easily read by a wide patient population. These measures will ensure that pharmacists can become more effective educators to improve patients' medication knowledge and understanding, which will assist with optimising compliance and overall therapeutic outcomes.

This paper seeks to share with the reader some of the mechanisms currently being used to generate scholarship in academic nursing, both at the institutional and individual levels. It then goes on to explore other ways in which educational managers might encourage scholarly activity. Finally, it presents the crystallization of ideas generated during discussions conducted with lecturers focusing on their selection of a workable path towards a future of scholarship, for them as an academic. It is intended as food for thought for managers of educational programmes and individual nurse academics as they scan the horizons of the future in an attempt to make the best decisions for the profession of nursing and individuals within it.

This report describes the evaluation of a curriculum-integrated programme designed to help students develop an awareness of the nursing literature, the skills to locate and retrieve it, and skills required in its evaluation; in other words'information literacy'. Positive changes in student performance on objective measures of information-literacy skills were revealed as well as a significant increase in the levels of confidence of the student in performing those skills. Students who had undertaken the information-literacy programme ('programme' students) performed better on a range of objective measures of information literacy, as well as reporting higher levels of confidence in these skills, than students who had not participated in the programme ('non-programme' students). Evaluation of this programme provides evidence of the potential usefulness of a curriculum-integrated approach for the development of information-literacy skills within nursing education. With these underlying skills, students will be better equipped to consolidate and extend their key information-literacy skills to include research appreciation and application. These are vital for effective lifelong learning and a prerequisite to evidence-based practice.

A response to Jennifer Greenwood, Nurse Education Today, (2000) 20 (1): 17–23, "Critique of the graduate nurse: an international perspective". Differences of opinion exist between nurses ‘in service’ and nurses ‘in education’ in all Westernized democracies with respect to their expectations of new graduate and diplomate Registered Nurses (RNs). Nurses in service complain that graduates and diplomate RNs are inadequately prepared for service provision at time of graduation. They complain, in particular, that graduates and diplomats have insufficient clinical and patient management skills. In contrast, nurses in education claim to prepare ‘beginning’ rather than competent practitioners, who are critically reflective and committed to lifelong learning. They also complain that service colleagues could do more to ease the transition experiences of new RNs. These differing views, the conceptualizations of nurse education and the socioeconomic pressures which underpin them will be explored in this paper. It will be argued that more intersectoral collaboration in terms of both pre-registration and transition programmes could result in the graduates’/diplomates’ expeditious acquisition of clinical and patient management skills.

This paper describes an evaluation of a curriculum-integrated information literacy programme in an undergraduate nursing course. The aim of the programme was to provide students with an awareness of the discipline's literature and the skills to locate and retrieve the literature. A multidimensional process for determining nursing students' development was utilised in the evaluation of the programme. Pre- and post-programme questionnaires were distributed to a cohort of students who undertook the programme. A cohort of more senior students who had not undertaken the information literacy programme was utilised as a comparison group. Questionnaire results were analysed using a range of inferential statistics. This paper will focus on two main findings related to objective measures of information literacy skills. These include pre-programme/post-programme change in student performance and differences in student performance between those who undertook the programme and those who did not. The programme demonstrated its effectiveness in developing information literacy skills, however the challenge remains for both academics and students to ensure that these skills are consolidated and extended for effective life-long learning.

The development of support for a more research-based approach to care has created the imperative for nursing education to tackle the issue of information literacy. Information literacy means the ability to locate, evaluate and apply information in critical thinking and problem solving. This paper outlines and provides a rationale for a curriculum-integrated information literacy programme, implemented in the pre-registration Bachelor of Nursing course at the University of WoHongong, NSW, Australia. It also describes a multidimensional evaluation process for determining nursing students' growth in cognitive and affective domains. Results of the programme evaluation will be featured in a future paper.

This is the second of two papers reviewing the evidence for interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke in primary care settings. The first paper considered the role of practice nurses in the primary prevention of CVD and stroke and interventions relating to smoking cessation. This paper reviews the evidence for interventions in relation to hypertension, raised blood cholesterol, lack of exercise and obesity. The paper concludes with a summary of practice indicators for reducing risk factors for CVD and stroke, based upon the current state of knowledge, which are particularly relevant to practice nurses and others engaged in health promotion. As new evidence becomes available, it is essential for practitioners to update and maintain their knowledge base in this area if the maximum reduction in the incidence of CVD and stroke is to be achieved.

This paper is the first in a series of two which together describe a review of current literature conducted to identify a range of research-based activities which practice nurses might employ in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke.The paper first describes the rationale for the review, methods and boundaries of the review and provides an overview of the research into the general effectiveness of practice nurses in the field of CVD and stroke prevention. Risk factors for CVD and stroke are then discussed, with particular emphasis on: - smoking and CVD risk -smoking cessation and CVD risk. Specific primary care interventions aimed at helping clients to stop smoking are then examined under the following headings: -GPs and smoking cessation brief advice brief advice combined with nicotine substitution - Practice nurses and smoking cessation. The paper concludes with a list of research-based activities for practice nurses in relation to smoking cessation. Interventions relating to hypertension, raised blood cholesterol, lack of exercise and obesity are considered in a subsequent paper.

In the first part of this article (Vol 5(7): 400-3), potential difficulties for theatre staff in relation to organ retrieval for transplantation were explored. This second part examines how the death of patients can be a major cause of stress for nurses. It focuses on work which suggests that lack of peer support among nurses and the perception that nurses should always appear to be ‘coping’ are common features which can prevent nurses from asking for, and receiving, support. Possible mechanisms are explored for ameliorating some of the stress that staff experience in association with this work. These include the role of managers and transplant coordinators in supporting nurses involved in transplantation work, reiterating (to staff) the benefits of transplantation surgery for recipients, and the possibility of debriefing staff after surgery. It recommends that more thought should be put into preparing and supporting theatre staff involved in transplant work.