Perceived importance of competencies by nurse managers at all levels: A cross-sectional study.

AIM: To explore nurse managers' perceived importance of competencies for their current job at different levels and the associated factors. BACKGROUND: Little work to date has explored the perceived importance of competencies in nursing leadership and management or considered the related factors in the Taiwan healthcare context. METHODS: Data collected from a previous large study comprising a cross-sectional web-based survey were analysed. Kruskal-Wallis test, two-sided Fisher exact test and multiple linear regression models were used for statistics analysis. RESULTS: The mix of three skills in Katz's model indicated that human skills were equally important in all three managerial levels. Of the 23 competencies, effective communication and political astuteness were rated by nurse managers at all levels as the highest-scored (M = 4.88, SD = 0.34) and lowest-scored competency (M = 3.92, SD = 0.78), respectively. Managerial level was a significant predictor of the perceived importance of competency. CONCLUSIONS: Relationship-based competencies were prominent in the perceived importance of competencies among nurse managers at different levels. Managerial hierarchy influences the relative importance of the different managerial competencies. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: This study's results provide the talent strategy framework required for improving the competencies of nurse managers at all levels.

[Health for all--the development of community health nursing and public health nursing from the perspective of education].

The purpose of this article was to examine the development of community health nursing and public health nursing in Taiwan from an educational perspective. Key issues addressed include: teaching strategies and scopes of practice used in community health nursing in Taiwan between 1910 and the 1950s; the philosophical foundations for the concepts of "health for all" and "social justice" in Taiwan's community health nursing; the five "P"s of community health nursing teaching and practice (population, prevention, promotion, policy, and partnership); the core competencies and scope of practice of community health nursing proposed by the TWNA Community Health Nursing Committee; and the core competencies and the tiers of classification proposed by the Quad Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations. This article helps to elucidate the inseparable relationship between community health nursing education and practice at both the micro and macro level and examines possible future directions for community health nursing in Taiwan. The author proposes the following recommendations for future community health nursing education development in Taiwan: 1) implement competence classifications appropriate to each nursing education preparation level, 2) promote multidisciplinary cooperation among education, practice, and policy, and 3) promote collaboration and consensus among community health nursing and public health related associations.

Collaborative evaluation and management of students' health-related physical fitness: applications of cluster analysis and the classification tree.

Health-related physical fitness has decreased with age; this is od immense concern to adolescents. School-based health intervention programs can be classified as either population-wide or high-risk approach. Although the population-wide and risk-based approaches adopt different healthcare angles, they all need to focus resources on risk evaluation. In this paper, we describe an exploratory application of cluster analysis and the tree model to collaborative evaluation of students' health- related physical fitness from a high school sample in Taiwan (n=742). Cluster analysis show that physical fitness can be divided into relatively good, moderate and poor subgroups. There are significant differences in biochemical measurements among these three groups. For the tree model, we used 2004 school-year students as an experimental group and 2005 school-year students as a validation group. The results indicate that if sit-and-reach is shorter than 33 cm, BMI is >25.46 kg/m2, and 1600 m run/walk is >534 s, the predicted probability for the number of metabolic risk factors ≥2 is 100% and the population is 41, both results are the highest. From the risk-based healthcare viewpoint, the cluster analysis can sort out students' physical fitness data in a short time and then narrow down the scope to recognize the subgroups. A classification tree model specifically shows the discrimination paths between the measurements of physical fitness for metabolic risk and would be helpful for self-management or proper healthcare education targeting different groups. Applying both methods to specific adolescents' health issues could provide different angles in planning health promotion projects.

The fatigue experiences of older Taiwanese women with breast cancer.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This study explored the fatigue experiences in older Taiwanese women with breast cancer. BACKGROUND: Cancer is a common disease for older people, and breast cancer ranks second in occurrence among all cancers. Fatigue is the most frequently seen symptom, with more than 90% of cancer patients having such experiences. Fatigue may lead to functional dependence, affecting the care and quality of life for this older population. DESIGN: A qualitative design was used in this study. METHODS: In-depth interviews were conducted with participants being treated at the oncology outpatient department in a teaching hospital in northern Taiwan. Data were collected from November 2006-March 2007. RESULTS: The study included 15 women, aged 65-82, with breast cancer. Analysis of the interviews revealed three themes: factors related to fatigue, interpretation of fatigue and ways to deal with fatigue. The factors related to fatigue arose from treatment, symptom distress and the impact of their emotions. Participants interpreted the fatigue as an inevitable normal reaction, and they were embarrassed to share its occurrence with others. Although fatigue made participants suffer, they found the ways to decrease the feeling of fatigue using psychological adjustments, practical changes and support systems. CONCLUSIONS: Facing the multilayered influences from treatments and ageing, older women with breast cancer considered fatigue as a physical and psychological expression. By raising the awareness of fatigue, nurses can help this older population manage or relieve fatigue by controlling symptoms, providing emotional support and making related resources available. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The results of this study can enhance the sensitivity and evaluation abilities of nurses in dealing with the cancer-related fatigue in older women with breast cancer.

Integrated care for severely disabled long-term care facility residents: is it better?

The demands of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) residents are complex which usually require a range of professionals and caregivers to provide treatment and care. To reduce this fragmentation of care, integrated care models are developed in modern health care system, and a gradual change from traditional LTCF care to integrated care has occurred in many countries. Although integrated care is assumed to improve the quality of care, evidences supporting these effects are insufficient. We recruited 7 private LTCF (74 residents) in northern Taipei and randomized them into integrated care model (N=42, mean age=82.8+/-8.0 years, 54.8% males) and traditional model (N=32, 81.7+/-8.8 years, 43.8% males). Integrated care model group was provided an actively working interdisciplinary team in addition to traditional nursing and personal care in traditional model group. Physical function, nutritional status and several quality indicators (unplanned feeding tube replacement, unplanned urinary catheter replacement, pneumonia, urinary tract infection and so on) were compared with both groups. Overall, LTCF residents in the integrated care model group showed significant improvement in serum levels of albumin (3.78+/-0.32 vs. 3.60+/-0.45, p=0.004) and hemoglobin (12.62+/-1.58 vs. 12.03+/-1.24, p=0.004) during the study period. Among selected quality indicators, subjects in integrated care model group were similar to traditional model group except that integrated care model group had a significantly reduced unplanned feeding tube replacement rate. In conclusion, the clinical effectiveness of integrated care model among severly disabled LTCF residents is minimal and a further cost-effectiveness study is needed to promote optimal quality of care in this setting.

[Health promoting schools: a new era in school nursing].

Health promotion schools, introduced by the World Health Organization in 1996, represent a new model for school health. They consist of six working areas, and reflect the spirit of the 1987 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, which aims to place the foundations of health promotion work in schools. This article introduces the development of health promotion schools, both in Taiwan and overseas, outlines their structure, and compares and contrasts the models represented by traditional school health, integrated school health, and the health promotion schools. The roles of school health nurses are summarized as follows: health service provider, health education initiator, health counselor, leader of health promotion activity and integrator of community resources. Suggestions are made for future development, including: (1) a need to conduct the research, in order to evaluate and provide evidence of outcome effectiveness, (2) a need to establish standardized indicators concerning school health nursing, and (3)Education and health should be integrated in the health promotion schools.

Teaching clinical judgment in Taiwan.

Clinical judgment is a process that nurses use during the course of their daily practice to gather and to evaluate data, define the needs of the clients, and to judge the outcome of patient care. Such judgment is also a critical ability used to assess the progress of nursing students. The purpose of this qualitative research was to describe the clinical judgment teaching in nursing education in Taiwan and provide baseline data for future nursing students to learn in a more effective way. Data was collected by in-depth individual interviews of 10 participants, all of whom were senior nursing faculty members from different nursing subspecialties. Two findings were reached. First, clinical judgment included not only the cognitive and the psychomotor domain of learning, but also the affective domain of reasoning. Second, due to cultural differences, " intuition " had never been mentioned in Taiwan, but a similar concept was substituted by use of the term " experience ". The findings suggested a holistic and integrative perspective was needed when teaching clinical judgement in Taiwan.

Acupoints massage in improving the quality of sleep and quality of life in patients with end-stage renal disease.

BACKGROUND: Traditional Chinese acupressure is a noninvasive technique that employs pressure and massage to acupoints in order to stimulate the balance of life energy that promotes health and comfort. Sleep disturbance is common in patients with end-stage renal disease but no intervention studies have addressed this problem. Aim. The purpose of the present study was to test the effectiveness of acupoints massage for patients with end-stage renal disease and experiencing sleep disturbances and diminished quality of life. METHODS: The study was a randomized control trial. A total of 98 end-stage renal disease patients with sleep disturbances were randomly assigned into an acupressure group, a sham acupressure group, and a control group. Acupressure and sham acupressure group patients received acupoints or no acupoints massage three times a week during haemodialysis treatment for a total of 4 weeks. The measures included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Sleep Log, and the Medical Outcome Study - Short Form 36. FINDINGS: The results indicated significant differences between the acupressure group and the control group in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index subscale scores of subjective sleep quality, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep sufficiency, and global Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores. Sleep log data revealed that the acupressure group significantly decreased wake time and experienced an improved quality of sleep at night over the control group. Medical Outcome Study - Short Form 36 data also documented that acupressure group patients experienced significantly improved quality of life. CONCLUSION: This study supports the effectiveness of acupoints massage in improving the quality of sleep and life quality of end-stage renal disease patients, and offers a noninvasive therapy for sleep-disturbed patients.