Flood’s Successful Aging theory (Flood, 2005) was integrated with a sociocultural and biosocial model of successful aging related to self-care. A correlational design was used to quantify successful aging and explain the relationships between successful aging, global self-esteem, and sexual quality of life of community-based postmenopausal women. A nonrandom sample of 99 postmenopausal women completed the Successful Aging Inventory (Flood, 2005), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1979), and the Sexual Quality-of-Life instrument (Symonds, Boolell, & Quirk, 2005). A significant correlation between successful aging, global self-esteem, and sexual quality of life was noted. Successful aging and meaning in life exists in postmenopausal women.

Recent studies have demonstrated that the prevalence of compassion fatigue is negatively impacting both the quality of caring for patients and nurses’ professional quality of life. Psychological Capital (PsyCap) has the potential to enable nurses to be resilient and flourishing in overwhelming situations. This cross-sectional study tested the correlations between Compassion Fatigue (CF) and PsyCap. Findings of this study suggested that PsyCap was moderately to strongly negatively correlated with CF. This suggested that improving PsyCap might be a good intervention for preventing CF. The findings from this study have implications related to caring in many of the service industries.

As student nurses begin to engage in a caring profession, being able to reflect and grow from their experiences is critical. Journaling is one way to be able to identify areas that can impact their practice. Reflective journaling helps student nurses to solve problems encountered while interacting with persons from an unfamiliar culture in unfamiliar settings. Immersions within a new culture offer the opportunity to develop self-confidence in their practice and strengthen critical thinking. Eight U.S. students traveled to West Africa to work with students in an English-speaking university and to engage in bidirectional learning with fellow nursing students. During this 2-week immersion program, the reflective journal was a strategy utilized to facilitate the identification of their feelings related to being a minority within another country. This study adds to the body of knowledge of the value of reflection in their growth and practice as nurses.