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Stress is well known to go hand in hand with registered nurses and the nursing field. The aim was to examine stress related coping strategies experienced and used by registered nurses from different countries all over the world. This qualitative study was done by analyzing the results from 10 different articles. The findings showed that there was multiple coping strategies that is being used by nurses to cope with the stress they experience at work. Some of the coping strategies were done after work; For instance, different physical activities including yoga and sports. Other coping strategies that were found are more work related. For example, the importance of knowing yourself in your nursing role, knowing your limits, and the importance of having a good relationship with your colleagues. Employers can use these strategies on a daily basis both and registered nurses to cope with work related stress.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The purpose of this study was to test the following hypotheses: 1. There are differences in the concepts of role ascribed to school committee members by the registered voters of Massachusetts and by the School Committee Members of Massachusetts. 2. Differences in the concepts of role ascribed to school committee are determined, in part, by a person's age, sex, income, political affiliation, occupation, education, geographic location and the size of the community in which he resides. [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

There is a gap between organizational commitment to professional value of the nurse and the achievement of quality outcomes. This study explored the relationship between the productivity model and the professional value (PVS) model of the hospital-based registered nurse (RN). It was essential to understand how to measure nursing's contribution to patient care as a means to promote patient care outcomes. The current professional nursing dynamic provides an unprecedented opportunity for nurses to achieve their highest professional potential through increased demonstration of advocacy and accountability for the central tenets of nursing. The intent of this project was to explore the elements of the professional nursing workforce in a modern-day hospital. This study was conducted on the medical, surgical, progressive care unit (PCU) and critical care unit (CCU) of a community-based acute care hospital Washington State. A quantitative approach was undertaken utilizing a descriptive correlational study design. RNs on the identified units received electronic invitation and survey via organizational email system, resulting in a participation rate of 47.1% (N=48). The study found that PVS model achievement explained patient outcome variable variance (fall rate 86.4%, HAPU 83.1% and CAUTI 40.9%). Further, large effect size (98%) with work unit variance was demonstrated with PVS model achievement. The innovative PVS model was found to demonstrate a statistically significant difference from existing productivity model, and alignment of RN staffing with organizational quality goals. Recognizing the professional value of the RN could promote meaningful change in the healthcare landscape and optimize patient care and quality outcomes.

This narrative inquiry traces and recounts an epiphaffic experience of a registered nurse on entering gerontic nursing, and her subsequent three-decade journey through the complexities and mazes of this nurse specialty. Such inquiry seeks to enable a better understanding of the realities of ageing and caring for older adults by opening up thinking and beliefs underpinning gerontic nursing work. Modern aged healthcare involves complex gerontic nursing actions, requiring highly skilled nursing personnel, but on the whole, gerontic nursing is dimly perceived and misunderstood by professional colleagues and the general public. Much of this misunderstanding is a legacy of an outdated ideology of gerontic nursing; yet these public beliefs, attitudes and interpretations are extremely powerful in determining aged care policy. As the population ages and more elderly people access healthcare services, society will be faced with an array of complex political and socioeconomic factors. This thesis aims to untangle such choices by pursuing the questions of: How have the constructs of ageing impacted on gerontic nursing practice and education?, What type of gerontic nurse will be required to provide future elderly care? and How will these people be educationally prepared for their new roles? Many of the constructs explored are dialectical in nature; that is, they have developed by inner conflict, the scheme of which is thesis and antithesis, or an original tendency and its opposing tendency. Such dialectical thinking has underpinned much of this thesis and in many instances, particularly in chapter 7, has taken the next step to the unification of these opposing tendencies; that is, synthesis, to create new understanding or meaning. Issues explored relate to: the ontology of ageing; the meaning of life; gerontophobia; Australia's changing population profile; changing aged healthcare systems; gerontic nursing cultural dilemmas; workforce planning; elder health in the future and gerontic nursing practice and education shifts. In a theoretical and methodological context, increasing difficulty with conventional epistemologies and the science founded on them is leading nurse theorists ever nearer to a postmodernist position. Narrative becomes a means through which gerontic nursing can accumulate and express cultural knowledge and critique procedure. The thesis exemplifies narrative's profound potential for underpinning the reconceptualisation of gerontic nursing practice and education. It is narrative's capacity to foreground the relationship between daily practice and knowledge that makes it a critical tool for the future of gerontic nursing inquiry. Narrative facilitates the paradigm, or more ontological shift from the dominant medical model of aged healthcare and 'tender loving care' rhetoric, to a therapeutic, caring-healing approach which has been in the margins in gerontic nursing practice. In the context of gerontic nurse education, narrative pedagogy offers new ways of thinking even in the midst of oppressive practices. Many issues remain unresolved about how gerontic nurses can be educated for future gerontic nursing practice. It would seem that aged care in Australia is a site of such organisational and cultural change, it threatens to undermine knowledge, care and understanding and shift care to untrained staff. The thesis illustrates how such approaches cloak much of gerontic nursing practice and devalue the intimate work of caring intelligently, emotionally and physically for frail older adults. However, while such tensions abound in gerontic nursing practice, the 2l~ century offers skilled gerontic nurses the opportunity to become key components in the refigured and redesigned aged healthcare delivery system. Research indicates that because few know enough about the sum of the future to impede well-constructed attempts at engaging in any new model design, taking any action is infinitely better than none. It is on this premise that Chapter seven posits a new model design for residential long-term aged care for older adults, believing that by imagining a different future, it can then be created and become a reality.

The research reported in this thesis explored the perceived value of transition support programs for newly registered nurses in New South Wales and the health care facilities offering such programs. Although transition support programs have been designed and implemented in various forms since the transfer of nurse education to the tertiary sector, there remains little evaluative evidence of the value of such programs. Two groups of registered nurses formed the participants in this study. The first were new graduate nurses who completed a transition support program within the past 12 months. The second comprised experienced nurses who worked with new graduate nurses during their transition support program. The study was carried out in seven hospitals in area health services across and around Sydney, representing both small and large facilities with bed numbers ranging from 195 to 530. Data were collected from four sources including the printed materials made available by sample hospitals. Questionnaires, interviews and observations were used to determine the purposes, outcomes and strengths and weaknesses of transition support programs. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and theme extraction. The themes described the ways in which the transition support programs were used to facilitate the transition of the newly registered nurse to confident beginning practitioner. There was widespread belief from the study participants that some aspects of nurse education at university were inadequate. As a result, various structures and policies were required to support the new graduate nurses as they entered the workplace. The transition support programs were used to increase nursing staff for the study hospitals and to provide new learning opportunities for new graduate nurses to enable them to develop the clinical and professional skills required of competent registered nurses. The rotational aspect of the transition support programs were used to provide staff for the less popular areas of the hospital as well as a variety of experiences and skill development opportunities that were considered lacking in the current undergraduate education of nurses. The work environment where the programs operate were described as difficult with nurses exposed to violence and bullying practices from fellow staff and frequently required to work with a less than ideal number or appropriate skill mix of nursing staff. The hospitals also used the transition support program to exert a controlling influence over the new graduate nurse by way of roster management, assessment of skills and the expectation that each nurse would complete a transition support program before being offered full time work. The thesis concludes with recommendations and future research avenues. It would be useful for hospitals to conduct formal evaluations of the transition support program they offer to provide the most effective program possible. One source of information could be sought from the new graduate nurses regarding their needs during the first six months of employment. It is also suggested that a study be commenced that investigates the reasons behind the perception that nurse education at universities in New South Wales is inadequate.

This research explores how registered nurses constructed their leadership role during the provision of health care services in acute care, adult hospitals in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. As health care organizations change to meet the demands of the twenty first century, nurses in Australia are coming to realize there is a dissonance between what they perceive to be the relevance of their work and the perception of the relevance of nurses’ work by others in the health care system. Consequently, nurses’ contributions to health care services are not recognized. The literature highlights that one way to address this problem is to articulate the various leadership roles contemporary nurses are asked to undertake. This is the aim of this thesis. This research seeks to illuminate the role of the nurse within changing health care systems by making clear the nature of their work through the perspectives of leadership. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to explore how nurses have undertaken leadership initiatives in their role as health care providers within contemporary health care organisations. The literature review generated following research questions: 1. How do nurses describe leadership within their health care organisations? 2. How do nurses experience leadership within their health care team? 3. How do nurses construct their leadership role whilst providing health careservices? In order to legitimate its findings this study aimed to provide a clear theoretical framework. In order to gain a clear understanding of the personal experiences and meanings of the participants, the theoretical framework for this study was underpinned by the interpretive philosophies the epistemological framework of constructionism and the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism. The methodology of case study enabled an empirical investigation of a contemporary nursing phenomenon, leadership wherein the researcher was able to pose questions to those nurses from whom most could be learned. Data were collected through two stages. In stage one, the exploratory stage data was collected through three focus group interviews. Stage two aided deeper exploration of the nurses’ leadership constructs with data obtained through one-to-one interviews. Analysis of the data enabled the development of a model of nurse leadership. Participants identified that their leadership was constructed through three perspectives of Self as Leader, Self and Others and Self in Action. The findings contrast the nurses’ unique leadership constructs to those of health care organisations, highlight the lack of acknowledgment for nurse leadership within health care teams, and demonstrate how the nurses’ leadership constructs influence their decision to act in the provision of patient care. This study concludes that as the nurses come to realise traditional leadership models are incompatible with their goal of achieving patient centred care, they have developed a different style of leadership to achieve their vision of patient centred care. Finally this study offers recommendations in the areas of nursing practice, nursing education and research.

An exploratory study of Board-Registered School Subjects was undertaken in 1989 to investigate the impact of this category of subjects on the curriculum for Year 11 and 12 students in Queensland secondary schools. The study was undertaken at two levels -the Systems and the Schools levels. At the Systems level, analysis of Reports and other documents was supplemented by interviews with key personnel in the education authorities. The segment at the Schools level consisted of interviews with administrators or teachers in ten schools in South East Queensland and a small student survey. Board-Registered School Subjects, first developed in that State in 1982, broadened the Senior curriculum from its traditionally academic base. The development of this category of subjects also heralded the beginnings of school based curriculum development in many secondary schools in that State. However, in the latter years of the 1980's, policies and syllabuses developed by the Queensland Department of Education indicate that a shift to systems based curriculum development is probable in the 1990's. Four sub-categories of Board-Registered School Subjects were identified in the sample schools. These were alternatives to core subjects, such as English and Mathematics, vocationally oriented subjects, those related to life/leisure skills and subjects which reflected the nature of the geographical area. The response by many schools to the development of these subjects was enthusiastic; most schools in the sample offered six to eight Board-Registered School Subjects to students in Years 11 and 12. Although many of these subjects were developed initially for students of "lower ability", a reported recent trend was for "academic" students to select one Board-Registered School Subject. The enthusiastic response by schools was curbed to some extent by the reaction of some teachers, students and parents to these subjects. Several Board-Registered School Subjects offered in 1989 were not implemented because insufficient numbers of students selected them. The major factor which mitigated against successful implementation of Board-Registered School Subjects was that students' results in these subjects could not be used in the calculation of the Tertiary Entrance Score, the basis for selection to tertiary institutions. For many students and parents, the Tertiary Entrance Score appeared to be the major goal of Senior secondary education.

Registered Nurses (RNs) have a history of policy leadership that has altered the health care system and the profession. The purpose of the qualitative inquiry was to describe the experiences of six select Saskatchewan formal Registered Nurse leaders (RNLs) in policy. Through open-ended interviews and letters, personal experiences were interpreted using content analysis. The researcher identified key ideas from the interview data and requested a reflective letter expanding or clarifying the chosen text, serving to enhance triangulation and member-checking of personal transcripts. Meaningful patterns and/or similarities describing three themes of values, vision, and career paths emerged from the textual data. The coding framework evolved into ten categories describing individual experiences, such as mentoring, change management, and work-life balance. Three RNLs described how they wished more RNs were involved in policy, as they believed that RNs could harness more power in policy processes. Five RNLs told stories about how graduate education influenced their thinking and they gained appreciation for leading action on policy issues.<p> The qualitative data were presented in categories for discussion. One RNL described how organizational structures may a limiting factor to RNs participation in policy. Implications and recommendations of the findings are outlined for education, practice, administration, research, and policy. Findings are relevant for professional, health care, and government organizations, as well as education programs. Relevance may be found by individual practitioners considering a leadership role, to assist in informing potential career paths.