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Abstract OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of nutritional supplement therapy on oxidant-antioxidant status, inflammation and immune system responses, pulmonary function, and health-related quality of life in patients with mild to [...]

Workplace burnout is common among nurse practitioners (NPs) and often occurs during role transition from a registered nurse to an NP. This study aimed to explore the predictors of job burnout in nurse practitioners (NPs). A quantitative cross-sectional design was conducted on 361 convenience sample of NPs from four hospitals in central Taiwan. Data on the demographic and working characteristics (hospital grade, years of experience as an RN and NP, practice setting, working shifts, working hours, average number of patients take care, salary, and performance bonus), Chinese version of the Nurse Practitioner Role Transition Scale, and Occupational Burnout Inventory were used. The enrolled NPs showed medium-level role transition scores (mean = 65.73, SD = 9.59), and the prevalence of personal burnout, client-related burnout, and over-commitment was 51.2%, 19.4%, and 49.9%, respectively. Role transition, hospital grade, practice setting, working hours, and number of patients take care were significant predictors of personal burnout, client-related burnout, and over-commitment after adjusting for cofounding variables, possibly explaining 52.8%, 42.1%, and 36.3% of variance, respectively. Hospital administrators should provide necessary assistance to help NPs transition to new role and ensure a positive work environment and reasonable workload so as to prevent the impact of job burnout on NPs.

Deinstitutionalization and the implementation of community psychiatry rehabilitation models define the future of psychiatric medical care in Taiwan. As such, managing and caring for psychiatric patients at the community level are increasingly important public health issues for county and city governments. A local public health authority in Taichung County established a collaborative relationship with a university-level nursing department during 2007 - 2008 in order to provide more effective continuous community care for psychiatric patients. This cooperative arrangement provided continuous community care for psychiatric patients in the County by implementing aftercare for psychiatric patients that was delivered through community-level public health centers, which conducted patient visits, developed discharge notifications for severe psychiatric patients in mental health institutions, and strengthened connections among related resources. To establish continuous community care for psychiatric patients, it is necessary to enhance training and support for health recipients as well as nursing staff in public health centers through measures that include: implementing discharge preparations and notifications in mental health institutions, improving the quality of community-based psychiatric patient visits, and connecting and integrating relevant resources effectively.

Care extension programs that bridge hospitals into the community are today a mainstream component of psychiatric care around the world. Stronger linkages amongst community resources can help patients and their families transition successfully through the hospital discharge process and reenter the community. Discharge planning is a service that provides the needs-oriented care necessary to link the hospital and community. Such planning, handled in accordance with case management procedures, focuses on medical team cooperation, follow-up services and recovery evaluation. Using a review of the literature and a real case study, this article demonstrates the practical use of discharge planning services, analyzes problems frequently encountered during the discharge process and related interventions. By increasing the proper disease management knowledge of patients and their families, strengthening staff support to families through the creation of "medical leagues", establishing community care and better support networks, and implementing a discharge process evaluation procedure, discharge planning services may provide efficient and continuous medical care essential to prevent re-admission, reduce hospitalization expenses, and strike a better balance between medical service quality and cost.

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of medical college students who resume smoking and their needs and suggestions for assistance. Low-structured, in-depth, audiotaped interviews and were conducted of sixteen medical college students. The content analysis method was used to analyze the collected data. The major findings were: temptation from friends and social environment, uncontrollable addiction, negative consequences of, alongside positive expectations for smoking, and uncomfortable feelings of failure, etc. In order to prevent resumption of smoking, it's very important to teach quitters how to deal effectively with situations of high temptation, coping with stress, defensive restructuring of cognitions, and how to increasing their confidence and motivation. The government should raise cigarette prices, extend school and work place prohibitions on smoking, and strictly enforce its regulations. The government should also reduce the age for tobacco control education, and bring all ethnic groups within the scope of its smoking prevention policies in order to reduce the harm done to healthy people by smoking.