FEMA nurses face "Mission Impossible": remembering Katrina.

Dowd, a faculty member, is a strong proponent for nurses sharing their stories. Miller's story about her volunteer experience was so compelling that Dowd challenged her to share it with the nursing community. This story is a demonstration of how a nurse can bring leadership, sensitive interpersonal skills, and a sense of humor to help forge a cohesive and outward looking temporary community. Nurses naturally interact from a paradigm of care and comfort. Miller makes this interaction explicit. The outcome of the journey was a memorable lived experience that brought caring, healing, and comfort to a situation of devastation. It is hoped this nursing story will inspire the reader to try a similar new role or to tell their story.

Comparison of a healing touch, coaching, and a combined intervention on comfort and stress in younger college students.

Three nursing interventions to increase total comfort and reduce stress-related events in young college students experiencing stress were compared. Healing Touch, coaching, and a combination of both, were compared to a waitlist. On comfort and stress, Healing Touch had better immediate results, while coaching had better carryover effects.

Development of the healing touch comfort questionnaire.

This study provided preliminary evidence for internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha = .94) of the newly developed Healing Touch Comfort Questionnaire. Fifty-six Healing Touch (HT) recipients (51 women and 5 men with a mean age of 51) completed the questionnaire. Participants with more than 4 HT treatments had higher comfort levels than those with fewer than 4.

A cognitive therapy approach to promote continence.

Both urinary and fecal incontinence are frequently occurring problems with costly consequences - physically, emotionally, and economically. General self-management strategies to promote continence, as well as behavioral and medical interventions, are often advocated. In this article, strategies based on a cognitive model are directed toward 2 overall goals: managing cognitions that are largely outside the individual's control while altering those within the individual's control, and improving management of continence with cognitive techniques. This approach expands and supports the behavioral and medical approaches to continence care. Nurses can use this comprehensive approach to increase the likelihood of positive continence outcomes.

Development of a healthy bladder education program for older adults.

The Healthy Bladder Program was developed as part of an academic and health care partnership and was designed specifically for older adults residing in independent and assisted living. Program content was based on best practices that can be used by nursing staff to provide information about promoting and maintaining bladder health. One hundred eighty older adults, recruited from long-term care retirement communities, attended the 1-hour program. Findings showed that the program was successful in providing bladder health information that older adults could use immediately; suggestions are given for best practice applications.

The addition of coaching to cognitive strategies: interventions for persons with compromised urinary bladder syndrome.

Compromised urinary bladder syndrome (CUBS) is defined as urinary frequency (UF) and/or urinary incontinence (UI) sufficient to be a problem. This term is an expansion of separate mainstream concepts referring to UF and UI, because the new term entails both phenomena considered at one time. Cognitive strategies (CS) offer one way to enhance the effectiveness and implementation of behavioral interventions directed to assist persons with CUBS. Two hypotheses predicted that persons receiving bladder health information would show less improvement on the outcomes than those receiving CS only or those receiving CS plus coaching after adjusting for type of UI. Secondly, persons receiving CS only would show less improvement on the outcomes than those receiving CS plus coaching. Data were collected at 3 time points, and the outcomes measured were comfort, bladder function, incidents of UF/UI (as recorded by participants in a diary), and perception of health. Neither hypothesis was fully supported. However, persons receiving information and information with CS plus coaching improved on comfort and UI/UF; all groups increased on bladder function; and perception of health did not change in any of the groups. Explanations for the mixed findings are proposed. In general, these findings support the application of conservative, noninvasive cognitive interventions innovatively applied through the use of pamphlets and audiotapes to help persons with CUBS experience increased comfort and improved bladder function. Implications for clinical practice are to provide a two-tiered intervention: education followed by CS with coaching if needed to enhance bladder function. A nursing role (as coaching) to augment specific interventions for CUBS is supported and should be differentiated for persons with symptoms of urgency.

Correlations among measures of bladder function and comfort.

There is a need for standard functional and psychosocial measurements of compromised urinary bladder syndrome (CUBS). Utilizing Kolcaba's Comfort Theory, the purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties and relationships among 8 measures of comfort, status of urinary frequency and incontinence, and quality of life. A convenience sample of 47 persons (45 women, 2 men) ages 25 to 92, who had UI for more than 6 months, was recruited. Data were collected twice with a 2-week interval. We examined (a) 1 measure of the immediate outcome of comfort related to CUBS, (b) 5 measures of UI status, and (c) 2 measures of quality of life. Reliabilities were adequate for all measures. Relationships among variables are presented and discussed. Recommendations are made for measures that detect improvement over time related to first line interventions.