Improving nursing students' perspective taking, perceptions of humanness, and attitudes toward older adults.

Whereas prior work has examined the role of nursing courses in improving empathic skills and reducing dehumanization of older adults, little research has explored how perspective taking and perceptions of humanness of older adults acquired through nursing curricula predict attitudes toward this age group. Nursing students (N = 43) completed surveys at the beginning (Time 1) and end of gerontological coursework (Time 2). Perspective taking and perceived human nature and human uniqueness of older adults increased from Time 1 to Time 2. Perceived human nature of older adults was associated with more positive attitudes at the end of the semester, compared to the beginning. Improved perceptions of the human nature of older adults also predicted lower ageism at the end of the semester. Strategies for improving perspective taking and perceptions of humanness of older adults in nursing courses are discussed.

Professional Nursing Values in Men: An NPVS-R Instrument Validation Study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although the Nurses Professional Values Scale-Revised (NPVS-R) has been validated in predominantly female samples, this instrument has not been validated with adequate samples of men. The purpose of the study was to assess the reliability and validity of the NPVS-R in a sample of male nurses and nursing students. METHODS: Psychometric testing was performed, using principal component analysis (PCA), on a convenience sample of 329 men in nursing from the United States. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: Participants rated the values in the NPVS-R as important, although undergraduate students significantly less so than graduate students or nurses. Factor labels of caring, professionalism, and activism were similar to those in previous studies. Variations across responses to particular items may reflect cultural variations. CONCLUSIONS: Although further testing is needed, results from the current study indicate that the NPVS-R is a valid and reliable scale when administered to a sample of male nurses and nursing students.

Male Caregivers: Shifting Roles Among Family Caregivers.

BACKGROUND: More than 16 million men in the United States are acting in the role of family caregiver. Men are usually viewed as not being caring simply because they provide care differently than women. However, this is not the case. OBJECTIVES: This article explores male caregiving from the perspective of family and professional roles. METHODS: A review of the literature related to men in the caregiving role was conducted. This review included only men providing care to a family member and was limited to men caring for an adult. FINDINGS: The main traits of male caregivers were defined as masculinization of caregiving behaviors, social support needs, and caregiver role strain/emotional aspects of caring. Men in the caregiving role must be supported. Education related to how men provide care is needed. Hands-on education should also be provided to men in the family caregiving role.

Professional nursing values: A concept analysis.

AIM: The aim of this concept analysis is to clarify the meaning of professional nursing values. BACKGROUND: In a time of increasing ethical dilemmas, it is essential that nurses internalize professional values to develop and maintain a professional identity. However, nursing organizations and researchers provide different conceptions of professional nursing values, leading to a lack of clarity as to the meaning and attributes of this construct. DESIGN: Walker and Avant's (2011) method was used to guide an analysis of this concept. DATA SOURCE: Resources published from 1973 to 2016 were identified via electronic databases and hand-searching of reference lists. REVIEW METHODS: A review of the literature was completed and the data were analyzed to identify uses of the concept; the defining attributes of the concept; borderline, related, contrary, and illegitimate examples; antecedents and consequences; and empirical referents. RESULTS: Professional nursing values were defined as important professional nursing principles of human dignity, integrity, altruism, and justice that serve as a framework for standards, professional practice, and evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: Further research is needed in the development and testing of professional nursing values theory, and the reassessment of values instruments. Core professional values that are articulated may help unify the profession and demonstrate the value of nursing to the public.

Current Perceptions: The DNP-PhD Divide.

BACKGROUND: Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and PhD degrees are terminal degrees in nursing, yet they differ in preparation and intended purpose. Perceptions of DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty, staff, and administrators regarding DNP/PhD teaching roles, research expectations, and attitudes toward collaboration are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: This mixed-method study sought to identify current perceptions related to collaboration and utilization of DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty, staff, and administrators. METHODS: Quantitative survey responses were obtained from 55 DNP- or PhD-prepared individuals, followed by qualitative interviews of eight participants. RESULTS: Qualitative findings identified DNP-PhD division, lack of collaboration, and sub-optimal utilization of DNP and PhD individuals. Significant quantitative findings identified perceptions that increased collaboration would enhance student learning and increase research success. CONCLUSIONS: Administrators should make organizational changes that break down barriers between DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty, staff, and administrators. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: University administrators can optimize student success by finding ways to bridge the divide between DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty, staff, and administrators.

Becoming Inclusive: A Code of Conduct for Inclusion and Diversity.

There are increasing concerns about exclusionary behaviors and lack of diversity in the nursing profession. Exclusionary behaviors, which may include incivility, bullying, and workplace violence, discriminate and isolate individuals and groups who are different, whereas inclusive behaviors encourage diversity. To address inclusion and diversity in nursing, this article offers a code of conduct. This code of conduct builds on existing nursing codes of ethics and applies to nursing students and nurses in both educational and practice settings. Inclusive behaviors that are demonstrated in nurses' relationships with patients, colleagues, the profession, and society are described. This code of conduct provides a basis for measureable change, empowerment, and unification of the profession. Recommendations, implications, and a pledge to action are discussed.

Core professional nursing values of baccalaureate nursing students who are men.

BACKGROUND: The perceptions of core professional nursing values of men in baccalaureate nursing programs are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: The study purpose was to understand and interpret the meaning of core professional nursing values to male baccalaureate nursing students. RESEARCH DESIGN AND CONTEXT: One-to-one interviews were conducted with male nursing students from a public university in the Midwest, following interpretive phenomenology. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Measures to protect participants included obtaining Institutional Review Board approval, obtaining signed informed consent, and maintaining confidentiality. FINDINGS: The study revealed five themes and several subthemes under an overarching finding of caring. Acquisition of professional nursing values began prior to the nursing program and continued to varying degrees throughout the program. DISCUSSION: Several implications are offered for nursing education, nursing practice, research, and public policy. These include identification of common values, teaching-learning strategies, inclusive environments, teamwork, and conflict resolution. CONCLUSION: Caring was revealed using a metaphor of a puzzle.

Evaluating an accelerated nursing program: a dashboard for diversity.

Diversity is a topic of increasing attention in higher education and the nursing workforce. Experts have called for a nursing workforce that mirrors the population it serves. Students in nursing programs in the United States do not reflect our country's diverse population; therefore, much work is needed before that goal can be reached. Diversity cannot be successfully achieved in nursing education without inclusion and attention to quality. The Inclusive Excellence framework can be used by nurse educators to promote inclusion, diversity, and excellence. In this framework, excellence and diversity are linked in an intentional metric-driven process. Accelerated programs offer a possible venue to promote diversity, and one accelerated program is examined using a set of metrics and a dashboard approach commonly used in business settings. Several recommendations were made for future assessment, interventions, and monitoring. Nurse educators are called to examine and adopt a diversity dashboard in all nursing programs.

Advancing diversity through inclusive excellence in nursing education.

Nurse leaders call for a more diverse nursing workforce, but too few address the concept of inclusion as a recruitment and retention strategy or as part of improving the academic learning milieu. This article addresses organizational considerations of diversity and inclusion as part of the agenda established by the Association of American Colleges and Universities for inclusive excellence, building on the idea that academic environments only become excellent when an inclusive climate is reached. Six organizational strategies to inclusion are presented from the authors' experiences, some structural and others behavioral: admissions processes, invisibility, absence of community, promotion and tenure, exclusion, and tokenism. A call for structural and behavioral adaptions within nursing education to advance an inclusive excellence agenda is presented.

Men in nursing.

This literature review examines the ability of the nursing profession to recruit and retain men in nursing schools and in the nursing workforce. The authors consider such educational barriers as role stress, discrimination, and stereotyping, and explore questions of male touch and the capacity of men to care. In identifying challenges faced by men entering or working in a profession in which women predominate, the authors hope to promote actions on the part of nurse leaders, educators, and researchers that may address issues of sex bias and promote greater sexual diversity within nursing.

Admission criteria for undergraduate nursing programs: a systematic review.

A concise, systematic review of commonly used admission criteria for prelicensure nursing programs is presented in this article. Admission criteria include grades in prenursing college courses, standardized preadmission tests, essays, personal interviews, and volunteerism. Literature is reviewed regarding the relationships between admission criteria and success in undergraduate nursing programs. Gaps in the literature and future research needs are described.

Implementing the virtual world of Second Life into community nursing theory and clinical courses.

Nursing students frequently lack an understanding of public health services. Their clinical experiences may occur in home health agencies or community clinics, rather than public health departments. To address the recurring question of what public health nurses do, a Second Life public health office was implemented in the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh's online Accelerated Nursing Program. The authors describe how Second Life was integrated into a community nursing course.

Implementing the virtual reality learning environment: Second Life.

Today, faculty members are challenged to find meaningful learning activities that enhance online nursing education. Second Life is an innovative Internet-based strategy that may be used to engage students in active learning. The authors discuss how this technology was implemented into an accelerated online nursing program.

Application of rotated PCA models to facilitate interpretation of metabolite profiles: commercial preparations of St. John's Wort.

This paper describes the application of orthogonal rotation of models based on principal component analysis (PCA) of (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra and high-performance liquid chromatography-photo diode array detection (HPLC-PDA) profiles of natural product mixtures using extracts of antidepressive pharmaceutical preparations of St. John's wort as an example. (1)H-NMR spectroscopy of complex mixtures is often used in metabolomic, metabonomic and metabolite profiling studies for assessment of sample composition. Interpretation of the derived chemometric models may be complicated because several sample properties often contribute to each principal component and because the influence of individual metabolites may be shared by several principal components. Furthermore, extensive signal overlap in (1)H-NMR spectra poses additional challenges to the interpretation of PCA models derived from such data. Orthogonal rotation of PCA models derived from (1)H-NMR spectra and HPLC-PDA profiles of the extracts of St. John's wort preparations facilitate interpretation of the model. Using the varimax criterion, rotation of loadings provides simpler conditions for understanding the influence of individual metabolites on the observed clustering. Alternatively, rotation of scores simplifies the understanding of the influence of whole metabolite profiles on the clustering of individual samples.

Combining PARAFAC analysis of HPLC-PDA profiles and structural characterization using HPLC-PDA-SPE-NMR-MS experiments: commercial preparations of St. John's Wort.

Herbal preparations represent very complex mixtures, potentially containing multiple pharmacologically active entities. Methods for global characterization of the composition of such mixtures are therefore of pertinent interest. In this work, chemometric analysis of high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode-array detection (HPLC-PDA) data from extracts of commercial preparations of Hypericum perforatum (St. John's wort) that originate from several continents is described. The spectral HPLC profiles were aligned in the elution mode using correlation optimized warping in order to remove peak misalignment caused by retention time shifts due to matrix effects. Furthermore, the warping was assisted by HPLC-PDA-SPE-NMR-MS (SPE = solid-phase extraction) experiments that yielded 1H NMR and 13C NMR data (from 1H-detected heteronuclear correlations), as well as ESI-MS and HRMS data, which enabled the identification of all major mixture constituents. The preprocessed HPLC-PDA data were subjected to parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC), a chemometric method that is a generalization of principal component analysis (PCA) to multi-way data arrays. PCA of the peak areas obtained from the PARAFAC analysis was used to facilitate sample comparison and allowed straightforward interpretation of constituents responsible for the differences in composition between individual preparations. In addition, loadings from the PARAFAC analysis provided pure elution profiles and pure UV spectra even for coeluting peaks, thus enabling the identification of chromatographically unresolved components. In conclusion, PARAFAC analysis of the readily accessible HPLC-PDA data provides the means for unsupervised and unbiased assessment of the composition of herbal preparations, of interest for assessment of their pharmacological activity and clinical efficacy.