Nursing staff have been tried and convicted of murdering patients. This qualitative study described attributes of nurses who killed patients in healthcare institutions and characteristics of murder events. Data sources included news reports, books, and court records. Results revealed personality and behavioral indicators manifested by nurses who murdered or were accused of murdering patients, and details of murder events. Registered nurses were accused and convicted of murder most frequently; male nursing staff were disproportionately represented. Old and acutely ill patients were frequent victims and poisoning with medications, the usual murder method. Power/dominance ranked as the most frequent motive.

Challenged by a Summer Academy on humanoid caring robots, members of the Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring in Nursing created guiding principles for transforming curricula by integrating technology into nursing education. The guidelines were oriented in academy dialogue on nursing as caring and robotic caring. Articles written for a special topics issue for the International Journal for Human Caring addressed robots in healthcare systems and perspectives on robots as providers of caring interventions. Themes in the articles informed the guidelines. The guidelines might incentivize faculty to integrate humanoid caring robots, a technology exemplar, into nursing curricula.

The purpose of this study was to develop the Caring Behaviors Inventory for Elders (CBI-E) and to establish its psychometric characteristics further. The 28-item CBI-E was framed by Watson’s theory of human caring. Aconvenience sample (N = 215) of elders and their caregivers (N = 138) completed the instrument. Psychometric analysis included item analysis, test-retest reliability, internal consistency reliability with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, contrasted groups construct validity, and factorial validity, using principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Preliminary construct validity was established. Five dimensions of the CBI-E were identified: attending to individual needs, showing respect, practicing knowledgeably and skillfully, respecting autonomy, and supporting religious/spiritual beliefs. Additional testing is warranted.