Bob Price

False Bodies True Selves book cover
Nursing Standard

Book review: False Bodies, True Selves

Bob Price finds out why body image is a concern for nurses by reviewing False Bodies, True...

Community Nurse
Primary Health Care

Understanding help-seeking behaviour in patients

Healthcare staff based in the community have a vested interest in understanding the help-seeking behaviour of patients. They are often the first healthcare professionals encountered by patients and may be the ones who also sustain support and guidance in the longer term after treatment has commenced. Help-seeking behaviour is not a simple process, but nurses are at an advantage if they understand whether, and if so how, patients might make approaches to them. This article summarises the theories associated with help-seeking and offers best-practice responses that will help maximise the chances that patients’ needs are identified and met.

Nursing Standard

Psychology for Nursing

A collected volume of essays by various authors, this book gives the reader expert guidance in different areas of psychology.

Cancer Nursing Practice

Psychology for Nursing

A collected volume of essays by various authors, this book gives the reader expert guidance by authorities in different areas of psychology

Nursing Standard

Promoting healthy sleep

Nurses are accustomed to helping others with their sleep problems and dealing with issues such as pain that may delay or interrupt sleep. However, they may be less familiar with what constitutes a healthy night’s sleep. This article examines what is known about the process and purpose of sleep, and examines the ways in which factors that promote wakefulness and sleep combine to help establish a normal circadian rhythm. Theories relating to the function of sleep are discussed and research is considered that suggests that sleep deficit may lead to metabolic risks, including heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus and several types of cancer.

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Hallucinations: insights and supportive first care

Nurses working in a range of clinical settings may encounter patients who report experiencing hallucinations, whether auditory, visual or any other form. This article, which has been written for nurses working in general practice rather than mental health practice, clarifies the differences between hallucinations and delusions and explains that both symptoms are often experienced together in mental illness. The possible causes of hallucinations are summarised and the advice that should be given to patients is discussed. Although patients might manage their hallucinations by creating narratives to explain what is happening to them and to find ways of representing their experience to others, diagnosis and treatment of underlying conditions are important too. The article outlines precepts that can guide the nurse’s response to a patient presenting with hallucinations for the first time.

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Understanding attitudes and their effects on nursing practice

Attitudes are of crucial importance in nursing. Attitudes help us to understand how people perceive issues and processes in care and determine what they deem important, good, relevant and appropriate. We should understand attitudes if we are to provide collaborative, patient-centred care; however, they are poorly understood. This article enables the reader to examine attitudes and their constituent beliefs and values. It explores the function of attitudes, considers how they are formed and reflects on the process of attitude change, examining how persuasion can be used to enable individuals to revisit behaviours that seem problematic or less effective.

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The Nurse Mentor’s Companion

This book aims to help mentors engage with the emotional and interpersonal aspects of learning in the clinical setting.

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Helping patients to learn about self-management

Nurses are often urged to help patients learn about their illness and the self-management measures that may enable them to achieve a degree of independence after they have left hospital. However, little has been written about the practical process of facilitating patient learning while the patient makes sense of their circumstances and considers what they can do to manage any necessary lifestyle changes. Educational articles tend to focus on programmed learning, such as educational courses delivered to groups of patients with similar conditions. This article assists the nurse in reviewing what learning might entail for a patient and to explore why this type of learning is different to learning in other circumstances.

Lonely senior
Nursing Older People

Approaches to counter loneliness and social isolation

Social isolation and loneliness are significant threats for older people and may be associated with mental and physical health problems. This article revisits what is meant by social isolation and loneliness and explores the way in which social change can trigger both problems. Social networks are discussed as the means by which older people can mediate the stresses of change around them. The article summarises some of the health consequences of loneliness, indicates some simple measures nurses can use to limit the risk of institutional loneliness and then examines how collaborative community ventures, mentoring and befriending schemes can help older people to access and rebuild social networks that may assist them to sustain wellbeing. Case study material is used to highlight contrasting profiles of older people who may be either more or less at risk of social isolation.

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Applying critical thinking to nursing

Critical thinking and writing are skills that are not easy to acquire. The term ‘critical’ is used differently in social and clinical contexts. Nursing students need time to master the inquisitive and ruminative aspects of critical thinking that are required in academic environments. This article outlines what is meant by critical thinking in academic settings, in relation to both theory and reflective practice. It explains how the focus of a question affects the sort of critical thinking required and offers two taxonomies of learning, to which students can refer when analysing essay requirements. The article concludes with examples of analytical writing in reference to theory and reflective practice.

Nursing Standard

Respecting patient confidentiality

Nurses face a particular challenge in respecting the confidentiality of patients in a world where information is quickly shared and where information about illness can be sensitive. We have a duty of care towards patients. That duty includes maintaining privacy (protecting them from undue intrusion), and confidentiality (by the discreet management of information about themselves that they share with us). Legislation on confidentiality comes from different sources and should be interpreted in the clinical setting. This article summarises the principal requirements set out in the legislation and directs readers to questions and tools designed to help them explore the extent to which patient confidentiality is respected where they work.

Nursing Standard

Writing up research for publication

This article describes the process of preparing a research article for publication in a nursing journal. It is aimed at nurses who wish to share their research results with other health professionals and is designed to help the researcher who is new to publishing. In writing a research article, the author describes what he or she has learned. This may enable others to replicate or develop the research, or improve their clinical practice. Published research should represent the research clearly and accurately, present the findings or results, and provide reasoned conclusions about what has been discovered.

Nursing Standard

Preparing a successful, role-specific curriculum vitae

An internet search reveals just how many articles there are on preparing a curriculum vitae (CV). The preparation of a CV should not be regarded as a ‘one-off’ event, to be updated periodically. A successful CV requires thoughtful preparation to ensure it is directed towards a specific post and should consider two important perspectives. First, an understanding of what is required of the practitioner in the nursing post (demand), and second, what the nurse can offer in terms of his or her skills, experience, qualities and qualifications (supply). The demands of the post will also include meeting professional standards, such as those that have emerged following consideration of the Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry ( Francis 2013 ). This article explores how to prepare a successful CV for a specific role, using a demand and supply perspective – where a nurse seeks to match the specific requirements of the post by summarising what he or she has to offer.

Nursing Standard

Improving your journal article using feedback from peer review

While preparation of a journal article for submission may often include informal review by colleagues, an article is not accepted for publication until it has been formally peer reviewed. Peer review is the process whereby journal editors ask expert reviewers to examine the work submitted and prepare a report on its suitability for publication. Two or more revisions of the article may be required following peer review, with the author reworking the article in the light of feedback received on each occasion. This can be challenging for some authors, but used well, it offers a chance to improve the work to the required standard of the journal, and help the author present a more precise and coherent account of the arguments. The extent to which the author responds to the critical commentary of peer reviewers is important, because this may determine whether or not the article is published. This article explores the aims of peer reviewers and recommends ways in which authors can respond to the feedback provided.

Nursing Standard

Writing a continuing professional development article for publication

Writing for journal publication is a worthwhile but challenging activity that requires clear motives, purpose, planning and execution. Continuing professional development (CPD) articles are designed to be informative and educative, with the aim of enhancing the reader’s understanding of a particular subject. This article provides an overview of how to approach and plan the writing of a CPD article to enhance the success of its acceptance for publication in a professional journal.

Nursing Standard

Writing a journal article: guidance for novice authors

This article focuses on writing for journal publication. The purpose of writing is explored, paying particular attention to the message to be conveyed and the readership to which that message is addressed.The process of drafting and revising an article for publication is outlined, after which attention is turned to the peer-review process, what peer reviewers are looking for in an article, and what might then be required of the author in redrafting the article to meet the expectations of the journal. Prospective authors are encouraged to research the journal to which they plan to submit their work, and to then target their writing to the readership of that publication.

Primary Health Care

Preceptorship of nurses in the community

There is recognition that newly qualified nurses find it difficult to make the transition to registered nurse practice. The transition may be especially challenging in the community, where nurses practise in a variety of settings, including the patients’ homes. Preceptorship programmes in the first year of registered nurse work have been recommended by the Department of Health, but the term preceptorship is poorly defined and often confused with other roles. Greater clarity regarding preceptorship as a role and how a programme of learning in the first year of qualified nurse work might be conceived are required. This article suggests four areas of learning that might form the focus of a preceptorship programme: orientation to the patients and services provided locally, real-time clinical reasoning, skill review, and socialisation into the community care team. When these underpin the nurse’s first year goal setting, enquiry planning and shared review of reflections in practice, a working programme can be agreed.

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