Coping with moral distress - The experiences of intensive care nurses: An interpretive descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Over the last three decades, there has been a growing body of literature that has described moral distress as a prominent issue that negatively affects intensive care nurses. Yet, little focus has been given to how intensive care nurses cope and continue in their practice despite being exposed to moral distress. OBJECTIVE: To describe intensive care nurses' experiences of coping with moral distress. RESEARCH METHODS/SETTING: A qualitative design using an interpretative descriptive approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven intensive care nurses. FINDINGS: The shared experience of coping with moral distress was explicated through the overarching theme of being Like Grass in the Wind. Four major themes emerged: Going Against What I Think is Best, Moral Distress - It's Just Inherent in Our Job, It Just Felt Awful, and Dealing with It. The findings also reflected actions associated with turning towards or turning away from morally distressing situations. CONCLUSION: By developing coping strategies such as seeking social support, nurses can move forward in their practice and meaningfully engage with patients and families experiencing critical illness. When successful coping is not attained, nurses are at risk of becoming morally disengaged within their practice.

[Franco-Ontarian parenting couples living in the Ottawa region and their perceptions regarding the usefulness of prenatal classes]. / Les rencontres prénatales : sont-elles utiles ? La perception des couples parentaux franco-ontariens de la région d'Ottawa.

In the last few years, there has been an important decrease in parents' interest and participation in prenatal classes in Canada and elsewhere in the world. Partial results were obtained on parenting couples' participation in and satisfaction with prenatal classes, from a larger study involving 103 francophone couples living in Ottawa, using'a mixed methods descriptive and longitudinal research design. This article aims to present the reasons why parents do not participate in prenatal classes and their suggestions to improve them. Several parents indicated that subjects such as pain management, birthing with a midwife, labor support from a doula, breastfeeding, and postnatal sexuality should be added to the classes. Also, they would like to have more flexible hours, more interaction during the classes, more emphasis given to expectant fathers, more access to a variety of resources and content and teaching methods that are more dynamically delivered. These research findings will provide recommendations for the delivery of prenatal education, for nurses' training in this domain, and for future research.

Young women's experiences of expected health behaviors during pregnancy: the importance of emotional support.

Young women often have access to fewer resources to make expected behavior changes during pregnancy. This qualitative study aimed to explore the experiences of young pregnant and parenting women regarding behavioral expectations and behavior change during pregnancy. Nine women (aged 15 to 24) participated in individual semistructured photo-elicitation interviews and data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings of this study suggest that although these young women received informational support throughout their pregnancies, there is a need to integrate emotional support into prenatal care for young pregnant women to facilitate their experience as one of empowerment rather than oppression.

Parents' experience of the transition with their child from a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) to the hospital ward: searching for comfort across transitions.

Parents of children in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) have many needs and stressors, but research has yet to examine their experience of their child's transfer from PICU to the hospital ward. Ten parents were interviewed following transfer from PICU to a hospital ward at a children's hospital in Canada. Parents' experience involved a search for comfort through transitions. The themes were: 'being a parent with a critically ill child is exhausting', 'being kept in the know', 'feeling supported by others', and 'being transferred'. Findings from this study can help nurses and health professionals working with parents during transitions.

[Perception of the linguistic and cultural context minority on the lived experiences of pregnancy]. / Perception du contexte linguistique et culturel minoritaire sur le vécu de la grossesse.

OBJECTIVE: From a public health perspective, the follow-up of women during pregnancy and the perinatal period requires quality communication and health services that take into account the context in which these women live. However, challenges related to access to health services in French in a minority situation have been documented in recent research. The objective of this pilot study is to better understand the perceptions, the lived experiences and the needs of pregnant Francophone women living in Canada within a linguistic minority context. METHODS: Given the exploratory nature of the inquiry, a mixed method descriptive study was conducted in Alberta and New Brunswick, whose populations are 2% and 33% Francophone, respectively. Two semi-structured interviews and a series of validated questionnaires were administered to 21 pregnant women during the third trimester of pregnancy and at six weeks postnatal. Based on the questionnaires, a descriptive analysis documented participants' characteristics, and qualitative interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed through an inductive process by four independent readers to uncover key themes related to the participants' experiences. RESULTS: Most of the women were bilingual and language in which health services were received did not appear to be a major issue for them, except during times of stress and at critical periods of the pregnancy. In contrast, almost one third of the women reported being unsatisfied with services they had received and attributed this dissatisfaction to gaps in French language services. CONCLUSION: Women prefer to receive health services in their mother tongue, however services are delivered in English most of the time. Participants report that during times of stress and emergency, communication in French is essential to a quality follow-up of patients. Linguistic and cultural congruence seems to be a key factor for quality care during pregnancy. A comparative study would assist in better ascertaining the relative impact of language on Francophone women's lived experiences during pregnancy.

[Media treatment of messages on weight loss products by the Association for Public Health of Quebec and its reception]. / Le traitement médiatique des messages émis sur les produits, services et moyens amaigrissants par l'Association pour la santé publique du Québec et sa reception.

BACKGROUND: The results of a study on weight loss products and services were released during a press conference organized by the Association pour la santé publique du Québec (ASPQ). The media widely covered this press conference. The purpose of this article is to answer the question: "How are messages emitted by public health institutions transmitted by the media and received by the population?" METHOD: The transcripts of the press conference, the press release as well as 43 documents from the print and broadcast media were evaluated according to a press analysis method. The analysis of these documents was based on the concept of the information unit. The compilation of these information units was used to produce charts which include data such as the frequency, partiality, weight tendency ("poids-tendance") and tendency-impact ("tendance-impact"). Furthermore, two focus groups of persons using weight loss products and services were conducted. RESULTS: In this article, we compare the emitted message with the one transmitted. The analysis of the message emitted by the ASPQ and that conveyed by the media revealed that for almost all subjects dealt with during the press conference, the media have been more partial than the ASPQ. The media not only expanded on the emitted message but also gave a negative image of weight loss products and services. Furthermore, the message transmitted by the media was very similar to the initial message. The focus groups on how the message was received by persons using weight loss products and services also revealed that the message was lost in the flow of information on weight loss products and services. CONCLUSION: This analysis of the emitted, transmitted and received messages has given us some indications on how to readjust the initial message and on what to emphasize in future press conferences.