Intrahospital transport of neuro ICU patients.

Neuroscience intensive care unit (NICU) patients are frequently transported out of the critical care environment for diagnostic and interventional procedures. Four hundred and seventy-one such transports from seventeen clinical centers were studied to identify the characteristics of intrahospital transport. Data collected included the destination and duration of transport, number and type of personnel involved, changes in monitoring and treatment during transport, adverse patient responses and the impact on patients left in the unit. Differences between transports characterized as elective or emergent in nature were noted. Results validate that intrahospital transport of NICU patients is both time and labor intensive. The study also suggests that the optimal process for safe and efficient transport is yet to be designed.

A comparative analysis of nurse and physician characters in the entertainment media.

The results of a large body of research have yielded findings supportive of the view that the mass media have a decisive effect on the formation of public attitudes and behaviours. This study reports the results of a content analysis of 670 nurse and 466 physician characters portrayed in novels, motion pictures and prime-time television series, published or produced from 1920 to 1980. When compared with media physicians, media nurses were consistently found to be less central to the plot, less intelligent, rational, and individualistic, less likely to value scholarliness and achievement and exercise clinical judgement. Moreover in television series nurse characters were depicted as valuing service to others and being helpful to patients less, and as being lower in nurturance and empathy than physician characters. An analysis of these data over time points to a steady and unmistakable decline in the mass media entertainment image of nurses while physician characters have remained consistently high or shown improvement. The implications of this image gap are discussed along with the need for image reshaping efforts which might direct public demand for more collegial and productive 'real world' nurse-physician roles and interprofessional relationships.

Policy perspectives on newspaper reports of nurse strikes.

Content analysis was used to study 1980 U.S. newspaper articles about nurse strikes. Multivariate analysis revealed that the 893 nurse strike articles presented a more negative image of the nurse than newspaper articles on other nursing subjects. There were more negative headlines, criticism of nurses, and negative relationships. Desire for higher salaries was the major strike issue reported by newspapers, conveying that nurses are interested in personal economic gain as opposed to quality patient care. Nurse strike articles were more likely to appear in larger circulation newspapers and be about strikes in hospitals rather than other health care settings. The most extensive and favorable press coverage occurred in states were organized labor is concentrated. Policy implications of these findings include the difficulty of using the nurse strike as a labor tactic in states with a strong antiunion press.

Forecasting for nursing policy: a news-based image approach.

A prototype of a news-based forecasting model was developed as an aid to policymaking in nursing and to assist in setting priorities for promoting an effective image of nursing. Newspaper articles about nursing were analyzed each month from 1978 to 1981. A model, constructed to show the effects of key nursing tissues on the image of nursing, was estimated using Ridge Regression to determine the direction and magnitude of the effect that each of the key issues had on the image of nursing. It was determined that newspaper articles that show nurses in clinical settings and articles that show nurses as playing a major role are the most important factors in projecting a positive image of nursing. The model was used to construct forecasts for the image of nursing from 1982 to 1984. The image of nursing was forecasted to improve over this period, primarily because of a projected increase in the number of articles that show nurses in this positive image.

School nursing in the news.

This study investigated the image of school nursing in the American press during 1978 and 1980. Content analysis of newspaper articles yielded specific measurements of the extent to which school nursing is visible via the press, the content of messages disseminated to the public about school nursing issues and two year changes in newspaper treatment of this topic. The mean number of articles published per state was 1.43 in 1978 and 6.30 in 1980. The typical school nurse article appeared in a daily newspaper circulated to less than 10,000 readers. Articles published in 1978 were significantly larger than those published in 1980 and were more likely to focus primarily on the school nursing program rather than on teachers, school boards, funding concerns or other issues. The majority of the articles (77%) devoted some space to describing the services provided by school nurses. Nearly 30% of the articles reported problems with funding for school nursing programs and 21% reported threatened or actual loss of funding for services. Although reports of protests against budget cuts by school nurses, teachers, administrators and parents were found, parents were depicted as the only interest group to succeed in efforts to avert the loss of services. Criticism of school nursing services was found in only 2% of the articles. More than 80% of the articles praised school nursing as a vital force for improving the health of American school children. It was concluded that school nursing has not yet attained a position on the public agenda as an important community issue despite the fact that the quality and level of school health services are increasingly threatened in the current budget-cutting climate.

Television news coverage of nurse strikes: a resource management perspective.

The quality of television news coverage of nurses' strikes and other labor activities plays a crucial role in expanding such conflicts to the public with either prolabor or promanagement colorations. It was found that access to the medium was influenced by the magnitude of the disruption. Nurse unions are benefited by more positive television news coverage when they (1) project an image of solidarity, (2) maintain unity over time, and (3) receive the support of other types of health-care workers. As predicted, hospital administrators were the most negative in televised comments about striking nurses.