Caring International Research Collaborative: A Five-Country Partnership to Measure Perception of Nursing Staffs’ Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and Caring for Self

Partnering in research across disciplines and across countries can be challenging due to differing contexts of practice and culture. This study sought to demonstrate how central constructs that have application across disciplines and countries can be studied while concurrently considering context. Groups of nurses from Botswana, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain partnered to identify how to measure the constructs of caring for self, burnout, and compassion fatigue, replicating a study by Johnson (2012), who found that caring for self had a moderately strong negative relationship with both compassion fatigue and burnout. While these constructs were of interest to all five groups, the conversation of contextual influences varied. All five groups used the same instruments to measure the central constructs. Levels of burnout and compassion fatigue varied by country but were moderated by caring for self. Partnering across countries made it possible to understand that caring for self moderates the negative impact of burnout and compassion fatigue in all five countries. This study gives insight into methods for partnering across disciplines and contexts

Caring international research collaborative: A five-country partnership to measure perception of nursing staffs' compassion fatigue, burnout, and caring for self

Partnering in research across disciplines and across countries can be challenging due to differing contexts of practice and culture. This study sought to demonstrate how central constructs that have application across disciplines and countries can be studied while concurrently considering context. Groups of nurses from Botswana, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain partnered to identify how to measure the constructs of caring for self, burnout, and compassion fatigue, replicating a study by Johnson (2012), who found that caring for self had a moderately strong negative relationship with both compassion fatigue and burnout. While these constructs were of interest to all five groups, the conversation of contextual influences varied. All five groups used the same instruments to measure the central constructs. Levels of burnout and compassion fatigue varied by country but were moderated by caring for self. Partnering across countries made it possible to understand that caring for self moderates the negative impact of burnout and compassion fatigue in all five countries. This study gives insight into methods for partnering across disciplines and contexts

"Linking as one" : an intimate breastfeeding moment : a thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Content removed due to copyright restriction Dignam, D. M. (1995). Understanding intimacy as experienced by breastfeeding women. Health Care for Women International, 16(5), 477-485Breastfeeding is more than the act of providing nutrition to an infant. It is a dynamic interpersonal process, frequently suggested by both women and authors to be an intimate activity. Health professionals have tended to explore the biophysical aspects of breastfeeding largely ignoring the breastfeeding woman's perspective and the effect social and psychological processes have on breastfeeding success. This grounded theory study drew on a range of data sources to describe breastfeeding womens' experience of intimacy. Data included interviews with twenty women participants, observational field notes, theoretical memos, drawings, literature and pictorial work. The study supported the premise that women experienced moments of intimacy when breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is represented in the basic social psychological process 'linking as one'. Linking as one is the intimate act of gifting, for comfort, pleasure and growth, human milk and human contact to a baby or child. 'Linking as one' is mutually exclusive and mutually satisfying to both participants. It is not all women's experience nor is it associated with every breastfeeding encounter. The findings support a substantive descriptive model of the breastfeeding process that represents and facilitates intimate breastfeeding moments. The model provides a framework for theoretical research, which may lead to further conceptual refinement. The model also provides a framework for education curricula and nursing clinical practice. Clinical application includes the use of concepts as prompts from which to explore interpersonal breastfeeding dynamics with breastfeeding clients. The concepts include breastfeeding comfort, ownership of the breast, mutual gifting and knowing. Exploration of these concepts may enable breastfeeding women to maintain and promote successful breastfeeding experiences

Nursing competence: not just a skills list

Whilst undertaking a funded (A$230K) project aimed at developing a clinical assessment tool for pre-registration nursing programmes across Australia, our initial work involved an analysis of the curriculum documents of all but one Australian University Nursing programme. This enabled us to identify skills taught and assessed in most or all programmes. A concern consistently raised, was that we were in danger of reducing nursing to a list of skills. Having identified competencies that would be assessed in clinical practice via our tool, the project was extended to capture those competencies/areas of skill which newly graduating nurses need to possess but which one cannot guarantee will be able to be assessed in clinical areas; in other words, those competencies/skills which would need to be covered in Simulated Learning Environments (SLEs). Via a modified aggregation of skills lists from the 36 Universities. In this way, 1300 skills were reduced to 270+, categorised within initially 30 skills areas. This was undertaken in part, via a consideration of the work of Anderson 87 and Meretoja 04 who considered the roles of nurses (educator, manager, communicator, etc) as well as the Essentials of Care project (NSW Health 2007). This work is now being considered by the (Australian) National Health Workforce Taskforce (NHWT) as the basis for their plans to identify (nursing) curriculum content for the SLEs they intend to set up across the country, aimed at improving skills and easing the problems associated with a shortage of clinical placements, for a variety of health professions, including nursing. This paper will briefly outline the parent project and then focus on the process we followed to generate a conceptually based schema for the identification of nursing competencies, which could usefully be developed and assessed in Simulation and clinical practice settings

Caring international research collaborative: A five-country partnership to measure perception of nursing staffs' compassion fatigue, burnout, and caring for self

Partnering in research across disciplines and across countries can be challenging due to differing contexts of practice and culture. This study sought to demonstrate how central constructs that have application across disciplines and countries can be studied while concurrently considering context. Groups of nurses from Botswana, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain partnered to identify how to measure the constructs of caring for self, burnout, and compassion fatigue, replicating a study by Johnson (2012), who found that caring for self had a moderately strong negative relationship with both compassion fatigue and burnout. While these constructs were of interest to all five groups, the conversation of contextual influences varied. All five groups used the same instruments to measure the central constructs. Levels of burnout and compassion fatigue varied by country but were moderated by caring for self. Partnering across countries made it possible to understand that caring for self moderates the negative impact of burnout and compassion fatigue in all five countries. This study gives insight into methods for partnering across disciplines and contexts

Identification of the GATA Factor TRPS1 as a Repressor of the Osteocalcin Promoter*

A proteomic analysis of proteins bound to the osteocalcin OSE2 sequence of the mouse osteocalcin promoter identified TRPS1 as a regulator of osteocalcin transcription. Mutations in the TRPS1 gene are responsible for human tricho-rhino-phalangeal syndrome, which is characterized by skeletal and craniofacial abnormalities. TRPS1 has been shown to bind regulatory promoter sequences containing GATA consensus binding sites and to repress transcription of genes involved in chondrocyte differentiation. Here we show that TRPS1 can directly bind the osteocalcin promoter in the presence or absence of Runx2. TRPS1 binds through a GATA binding sequence in the proximal promoter of the osteocalcin gene. The GATA binding site is conserved in mice, humans, and rats, although its location and orientation are not. Mutation of the mouse or human GATA binding sequence abrogates binding of TRPS1 to the osteocalcin promoter. We show that TRPS1 is expressed in osteosarcoma cells and upon induction of osteoblast differentiation in primary mouse bone marrow stromal cells and that TRPS1 regulates the expression of osteocalcin in both cell types. The expression of TRPS1 modulates mineralized bone matrix formation in differentiating osteoblast cells. These data suggest a role for TRPS1 in osteoblast differentiation, in addition to its previously described role in chondrogenesis