Original Research: The Lived Experiences of Nurses as Patients: A Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: An ED admission and hospitalization are scary experiences for anyone, and potentially more so for nurses. Yet there is scant information about nurses as patients in the nursing research literature. This likely reflects a general tendency among researchers to study the needs of patients but not those of nurses. OBJECTIVE: This qualitative phenomenological study sought to explore the lived experiences of nurses who were admitted as patients to a hospital directly from an ED. METHODS: A sample of nurse patients 21 years of age and older and including various genders, nursing specialties, and diagnoses were recruited using maximum variation purposive sampling. A semistructured interview guide was created, and data were collected through individual interviews conducted either face-to-face or via telephone. Data were coded manually, and thematic analysis was conducted using Dedoose software. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that many participants had experienced tremendous undue stress during their hospitalization. Four themes were identified: to tell or not to tell, pulling the nurse card, taking one's care into one's own hands, and having to make medical decisions while sick. CONCLUSIONS: The study findings indicate that nurses who are hospitalized have different needs than do hospitalized individuals in the lay population. The findings inform our recommendations, which health care organizations, nurse educators, and nurse leaders can use to promote smoother, more compassionate care for nurse patients. Staff nurses can use them to better prepare themselves for caring for a nurse patient-or becoming one. The study findings can also serve to guide future research.

Early management of meningococcal disease--do attitudes of GPs influence practice?

BACKGROUND: Survival from early meningococcal disease might be improved if general practitioners followed guidelines by immediately administering parenteral antibiotics (before hospital referral). METHODS: Structured telephone interviews with 20 GPs who had previously treated meningococcal cases. RESULTS: General practitioners knew guideline recommendations for early management of meningococcal disease: early parenteral antibiotics would be given by about half the GPs entertaining a diagnosis of meningococcal infection. Barriers to immediate treatment were: diagnostic uncertainty, regarding the case as nonurgent, and practising close to a hospital. DISCUSSION: Diagnosing meningococcal disease is difficult in general practice. Early antibiotic administration for suspected cases is appropriate even in close proximity to referral hospitals.

Confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory: two approaches for exploring measurement invariance.

This study investigated the utility of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) models for testing the comparability of psychological measurements. Both procedures were used to investigate whether mood ratings collected in Minnesota and China were comparable. Several issues were addressed. The first issue was that of establishing a common measurement scale across groups, which involves full or partial measurement invariance of trait indicators. It is shown that using CFA or IRT models, test items that function differentially as trait indicators across groups need not interfere with comparing examinees on the same trait dimension. Second, the issue of model fit was addressed. It is proposed that person-fit statistics be used to judge the practical fit of IRT models. Finally, topics for future research are suggested.