Nursing Student Coaches for Emergency Department Super Utilizers.

BACKGROUND: The Super Utilizer Project is a collaboration between an integrated health care organization and a baccalaureate school of nursing. The goal is to help the super utilizers access appropriate health care resources through the use of a student coach model. METHOD: The student coaches provide clients with disease prevention and health promotion education and assistance specific to the clients' unique health care needs. The tenets of the theoretical frameworks of servant leadership, caring theory, and transtheoretical model of behavior change are applied throughout this project. RESULTS: First-year outcomes for the project were encouraging, with the total number of visits for 23 super utilizers to the emergency department decreasing from 710 annually to a projected 510 annually, and second-semester visits for 20 clients decreased from 634 to a projected 462. CONCLUSION: The students experience complex client care and collaboration with an interdisciplinary team reducing nonemergent emergency department super utilizer visits. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(1):27-30.].

The Affordable Health Care Act annual wellness visits: the effectiveness of a nurse-run clinic in promoting adherence to mammogram and colonoscopy recommendations.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the nurse-run annual wellness visit (AWV) in improving adherence to cancer screening recommendations for colonoscopies and/or mammograms. BACKGROUND: The Affordable Health Care Act provides Medicare beneficiaries access to AWVs. Nurse-run AWVs offer individualized education, reinforce health screening recommendations, and may enhance the patients' intent to complete the screenings. METHODS: A nonexperimental comparative study was conducted using data collected from chart audits comparing patients who only attended the AWV, patients who attended the AWV linked with a physician visit, and patients who have not attended an AWV. RESULTS: Patients who attended the AWV showed greater adherence to mammogram completion regardless of the link to the physician follow-up visit. Differences in adherence to colonoscopy recommendations were not significant, likely because of the low number of colonoscopies reported. CONCLUSIONS: Nurse-run AWV clinics are associated with adherence to mammograms and show promise of increasing colonoscopy compliance.

Psychometric evaluation of the perceived prejudice in health care scale-modified (PPHC-M) among baccalaureate student nurses.

PURPOSE: Discrepancy in quality of health care for patients with diverse backgrounds contributes to health outcome disparities. BSN students reveal surprise regarding the presence of health care disparities. Critical social theory guided this study. The psychometric properties of the Perception of Prejudice in Health Care Scale­Modified (PPHC-M) were evaluated,and the relationship between perceived discrimination in health care delivery and cultural sensitivity awareness was explored. DESIGN: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey of 146 Midwest BSN students was conducted using Cultural Competence Assessment (CCA), PPHC-M, and the Marlowe­Crowne Social Desirability Scale. RESULTS: PPHC-M demonstrated reliability(α = .781.) Cronbach's alphas for General Perception of Prejudice (GPP) and Personal Experience of Prejudice (PEP) were.759 and .756, respectively. Construct validity was supported by contrasted groups. The PPHC was not significantly correlated with the CCA scores. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: PPHC-M shows promise in measuring perceived prejudice in health care.

Symptom perception and adherence to asthma controller medications.

PURPOSE: To explore asthma symptom perception and the relationship between asthma symptom perception and adherence to asthma treatment. DESIGN: Adult patients (N=120) of asthma/allergy specialty clinics, taking Advair as a controller medication, were enrolled in this cross-sectional descriptive study. METHODS: Ninety-seven participants completed 4 weeks of daily diaries to assess subjective symptom perception and measured peak expiratory flow rates (PEFR), both done twice daily. Individual perceptual accuracy scores (PAS) were determined by correlating the subjective symptom perception scores with the PEFRs. Measures included demographic variables, illness identity (personal control and treatment control, consequences, and timeline-cyclical subscales of the IPQ-R), asthma severity (FEV1 percentage) and a single-item indicator of perceived asthma severity. Adherence was measured by the Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS) and by an Advair dose count (percentage of doses taken as prescribed). FINDINGS: Independent t tests comparing adherence rates of good versus poor perceivers were not significant, using either the percentage Advair dose count or the MARS. Multiple regression analyses showed that years with asthma, illness identity, and peak flow variability were all significant explanatory variables for perceptual accuracy. CONCLUSION: Peak flow variability adds complexity to the relationship between perceptual accuracy and adherence that warrants further investigation.

The African American experience in the Islamic faith.

Disparity of health outcomes has been identified as a key concern in the health of Americans. Marginalization of the African American population may be a contributing factor. Identification of health protectors may prove key in decreasing disparities. The effect of spirituality on health is discussed. A historical overview of the African American experience in the Islam faith, from the Nation of Islam to universal Islam, is presented. A systematic assessment of the Islamic faith, with emphasis on the African American Muslim, was conducted as an assessment for a Community Health Nursing class. Leininger's Sunrise Model of Culture Care Diversity and Universality, with the ethnonursing model of data collection, served as the framework for data collection and analysis. The Islamic faith was noted to offer holistic direction for a "way of life" that promotes health and harmony of the mind, body, and soul. Implications for research were discussed.