Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Newly Graduated Registered Nurses.

BACKGROUND: The transition from student to professional nurse is an important milestone in the development of newly graduated nurses. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been shown to reduce symptoms of stress in those engaged in regular practice (Bazarko, Cate, Azocar, & Kreitzer, 2013; Kabat-Zinn, 1990). METHOD: The quality improvement project used a one-group pre-test/posttest design to measure newly graduated registered nurses' awareness of mindfulness and perceived stress. RESULTS: Mindfulness awareness improved from pre-intervention (M = 3.66, SD = .81) to post-innovation (M = 4.03, SD = .69) although this was not statistically significant, (t[67] = 1.93, p = .057). There was a statistically significant decrease in perceived stress from pre-innovation (M = 19.47, SD = 7.16) to post-innovation (M = 15.71, SD = 6.90), (t[66] = 2.16, p = .034). Qualitative themes of increased patient safety, communication, and teamwork were identified. CONCLUSION: MBSR has the potential to increase mindfulness and decrease perceived stress in newly graduated registered nurses, encouraging improved patient safety, communication, and teamwork.

Implementation of a user-centered framework in the development of a web-based health information database and call center.

As healthcare consumers increasingly turn to the World Wide Web (WWW) to obtain health information, it is imperative that health-related websites are user-centered. Websites are often developed without consideration of intended users' characteristics, literacy levels, preferences, and information goals resulting in user dissatisfaction, abandonment of the website, and ultimately the need for costly redesign. This paper provides a methodological review of a user-centered framework that incorporates best practices in literacy, information quality, and human-computer interface design and evaluation to guide the design and redesign process of a consumer health website. Following the description of the methods, a case analysis is presented, demonstrating the successful application of the model in the redesign of a consumer health information website with call center. Comparisons between the iterative revisions of the website showed improvements in usability, readability, and user satisfaction.