This book delivers everything nurses and other health researchers need to know about designing, testing, selecting, and evaluating instruments and methods for measurement in nursing. It features the most current content, strategies, and procedures available with direct applicability to nurses and health researchers engaging in interprofessional research, collaboration, education, and evidence-based practice. Chapters focus on challenges in using big data, evaluation, and measurement in interpersonal practice and education; metrics and benchmarking in health education and practice; and measurement issues in translational science. The book gives particular attention to measurement issues resulting from changes in nursing, health research, and the increased emphasis on and undertaking of interprofessional research and evaluation. Presenting the material in step-by-step format, the book is designed for readers with little or no experience in measurement, statistics, or interprofessional issues. It focuses on increasing the reader’s ability to use measures that are operationalized within the context of theories and conceptual frameworks, derived from sound measurement principles and practices and adequately tested for reliability and validity. Additionally, the text provides a pragmatic account of the processes involved in several aspects of measurement such as content analysis, interviews, and questionnaires. In nursing and health research, the Delphi technique is used for obtaining judgments from an expert panel about an issue of concern that is designed to structure group opinion and discussion. Visual analog scale (VAS) can be used even in high-stress, high-volume clinical settings, such as emergency departments.

This book delivers a wealth of practical tools for incorporating spirituality into nursing. There are numerous articles on the concepts of spirituality and religion in nursing practice, including the nursing role in spiritual assessment, spiritual nursing diagnoses, spiritual care in various nursing contexts, and many more. Spirituality is a focus for debate and discussion within the nursing profession, and it is appropriate to consider this concept as it has captured the nursing world. The book discusses an interrelationship between resilience and holistic health. It also discusses challenges to incorporating spirituality into nursing practice. Although there is ample rationale for the inclusion of spirituality into nursing practice, education, and research, there are also challenges to such inclusion. Some would identify these challenges as “barriers”, but the word “challenges” seems to have more potential for positive action with respect to exploring each challenge and ways to overcome it. In order to appropriately incorporate spiritual assessment and care into practice, nurses need the requisite professional competency. Competencies are integral to nursing practice and usually accompany standards of practice. Standards for educating nurses about spiritual care are present in both educational and practice contexts in that they are part of the accreditation criteria for institutions. The book also focuses on spiritual assessment and spiritual care within the context of mental health care/mental health nursing and spirituality in palliative and hospice care.

The intent of this book is to provide useful knowledge and practical applications to ease the work of leading or working in a hospital-based nursing research program. It contains principles that apply to all sizes of hospitals, as well as hospital systems that may be spread out over multiple states or be contained in one area. The book describes how nursing research provides new evidence for nursing practice that improves clinical outcomes, changes the culture of the organization, creates new leadership roles for nurses, offers opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, enhances patient safety, improves nurse and patient satisfaction, and leads to positive branding of the hospital and the nursing department. Nursing leadership can create (or support) a vision for nursing research based on the benefits that are central to the hospital’s strategic mission and goals. An essential element of setting the foundation and planning, growing, and nurturing a nursing research program is to demonstrate how the program aligns with the strategic plan (vision, mission, and goals) of nursing. The three foundational elements of strong nursing research programs personnel, intranet resources, and a nursing research department database are interconnected and should be available to the entire nursing department, including non-nurse providers and administrators, because important research questions can come from anyone on the team. The nursing research department database is an electronic system of input and storage of direct and indirect data important to the development, conduct, translation, and dissemination of nursing research.

This book presents a conceptual framework for contemporary nursing practice based on the science of self-care and also incorporates other nursing and multidisciplinary perspectives. It illustrates how to attain and integrate knowledge from nursing theory and theories of related disciplines to achieve optimal evidence-based nursing practice. Case examples from a variety of clinical situations integrated with nursing theory demonstrate the variables needed to achieve optimal nursing practice. The first chapter discusses, inter alia, the relative value of different ways and patterns of knowing within the discipline of nursing. This is followed by a chapter that explains the importance of knowing and understanding the proper object of nursing. Nursing is an action system; action systems begin with problem identification, framing, and delineation. Several factors condition or influence the requirements for self-care, and represent a point of articulation of nursing sciences with other sciences that inform health-related situations. Self-care agency is developed as one learns from his or her family members and others in society to care for self. A traditional collaborative-care system is a unique whole that is formed through the informal or formal negotiation for care by two adults. The dependent-care agent is a person in a relationship not only with the care recipient but also with other members of the family. The family may be a factor that conditions the therapeutic self-care demand and self-care agency of the family member who is the identified patient.

This book merges the full spectrum of Caring Science evolution and identifies a clear path for future growth and development. It provides an opportunity to experience the delicate space of praxis, as the examples of a living philosophy are made accessible to the reader. The book through personal narrative, exemplars, and discourses on Caring Science, helps the reader to understand the history, accomplishments, and vision of human caring as a serious ethical, ontological, epistemological, practical endeavor. Its intent is to create a compendium of cutting-edge literature related to Caring Science to inform and transform nursing practice. The book comprises 50 chapters and is structured with 10 sections, each focused on a particular theme. Section I assumes that nursing knowledge is evolving towards a unitary-transformative worldview, and the ontology of Caring Science is embracing the tenets of this unitary worldview. Section II describes explicit connections between established programs or initiatives and Caring Science. Section III discuses Caritas science literacy. Section IV is on caritas literacy as a foundation for nursing education. Section V focuses on how scholarly inquiry advances the epistemology of Caring Science in the areas of leadership, research, and education. Section VI explores epistemology of research, aesthetic knowing (healing environments), and Caritas Praxis. Section VII integrates Caring Science grounded in Watson’s Theory of Human Caring and the 10 Caritas Processes into large complex healthcare systems. Section VIII reflects the process of Caring Science and cross-cultural (transcultural) ethical significance that is being developed in many parts of the world. Section IX focuses on advancing disciplinary-specific knowledge grounded in a relational unitary worldview within the context of Unitary Caring Science. The final section focuses on how Caring Science can become a journey of personal and professional transformation engaging in aesthetic ways of knowing.

The original inspiration for this book grew out of the authors' experience while co-teaching an epidemiology course for students enrolled in a doctorate in nursing practice (DNP) program. They found it difficult to find a textbook that addressed the course objectives and was relevant to nursing practice. They decided a population-based nursing textbook, targeted for use as a primary course textbook in a DNP program or as a supplement to other course materials in a graduate community health nursing program, would be of great benefit and value to students enrolled in these programs. This book is the result of that vision. The chapters address the essential areas of content for a DNP program as recommended by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), with a focus on the AACN core competencies for population-based nursing. The primary audience is nursing students enrolled in either a DNP program or a graduate community health nursing program. Each chapter includes discussion questions to help students use and apply their newly acquired skills. The third edition adds a chapter on accreditation of population-based programs and provides a list of Internet resources to each chapter. It addresses the increasing interest in the use of social media to address population health as well as other current issues in population-based nursing. As in the earlier editions, this textbook includes successful strategies that nurses have used to improve population outcomes and reinforces high-level application of activities that require the synthesis and integration of information learned.

Understanding and managing technology is a key component in providing quality patient care today. This book delivers required competencies and frameworks for both nursing education and practice, expanding upon integral systems and technologies within one’s healthcare system and their impact on the responsibilities of the individual nurse. Highlighting the intricacies within a specialized approach to healthcare data, data mining, and data organization, this resource connects day-to-day informatics practices to larger initiatives and perspectives. Clear and concise synopses of healthcare essentials, case studies, and abundant practical examples help readers understand how health informatics improves patient care within the nursing scope of practice. Thought-provoking questions in each chapter facilitate in-depth considerations about chapter content. The book provides a broad overview of informatics knowledge to empower nurses to be thoughtful and participate in the capture, storage, and use of data to optimize patient outcomes. Technology is changing rapidly in healthcare, and this book provides a primer for noninformatics nurses who wish to know more about data and how those data affect healthcare. It explains the importance of informatics and informatics competencies and provides the core of the informatics architecture, including the electronic health record and decision support tools. The text concludes with information related to the ethical, legal, and social issues related to informatics and the user experience.

It is the professional obligation of nurse preceptors to ensure that a preceptorship of the highest standard is provided. A high-quality preceptorship will help to ensure that the nurse or student (preceptee), will deliver quality, patient-centered care that is safe and has its foundation in evidence-based practice. This book presents a foundation for preceptorship of newly graduated registered professional nurses from traditional and accelerated programs. It briefly reviews students from nurse practitioner (NP) programs as well. Quality and safety are paramount issues in nursing practice. It is because of this that they should be emphasized throughout nursing education and preceptorship. The book is full of practical how-to guidance, evidence-based resources, and references for further reading, and it is a must-read for any nurse who has been a preceptor or may become a preceptor. It unlocks what every new nurse preceptor needs to know to be successful with a preceptee, whether the preceptee is a nursing student in their final semester or a new nurse on orientation. The book covers everything necessary in a fast, factual, easy-to-read format. It is a great resource for seasoned nurses as well, with its comprehensive review of basics like shift organization, prioritization, communication, delegation, and conflict resolution. It also covers the dreaded reality shock that new nurses will face after the honeymoon phase, how to recognize those who are struggling, how to encourage critical thinking, and how to prepare for the future when the preceptorship is over. Throughout the book, the author gives great examples of problem-solving dos and don’ts, checklists, and forms. The book is also an excellent resource for educators looking to implement nurse preceptor programs in their workplaces, and a great textbook for preceptor students.

Nurses in clinical settings and nonclinical support roles face pressing clinical and operational issues in practice. With the face of health also changing rapidly, the unforeseen problem rears its head every day. To meet new and unexpected challenges requires explicit knowledge about emerging technologies—innovative, smart technologies developed to function intelligently, with more efficiency and accuracy. For this reason, the finer points of these technologies need understanding by practicing nurses, nursing leaders, and nurses teaching health information technology (IT), and informatics courses. This book serves to do that. It provides information about exciting areas of technology that has great potential to improve patient care. Subjects include Big Data, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented realities, Internet of Things, precision health, and the future of emerging technologies in nursing practice. There is also discussion of the shift of healthcare delivery into the community, with an outlook on improving outcomes and enhancing practice. What makes this book unique is the examination of healthcare as a technology industry, critical divergent collaborations, and the impetus of healthcare innovation. Also, Big Data is thoughtfully utilized to provide nurse value and act as the source of all emerging technologies. The book includes details about how each emerging technology drives decision making in tandem with the nursing process and critical thinking and how the novel technologies will move care delivery into the community and become a catalyst in health consumerism and the sharing economy. The book is a blueprint for a new direction for nurses in health IT, and what it will become in the next decade and the 21st century.

This book is unique in its contribution to the theory textbook literature with its goal of expanding nursing’s knowledge-generating capacity by engaging nurses in theory and knowledge development through their practice lenses. It presents philosophical, historical, practical, and theoretical perspectives regarding practice-centered knowledge development. The book is divided into fifteen chapters. The first chapter discusses nursing knowledge. In the second chapter, intermodernism is featured as a philosophy of nursing science and practice that synthesizes important tenets of other philosophical views. The third chapter discusses doctoral nursing roles in knowledge generation. Chapter four describes practitioner-centered research. Chapters five, seven, nine, twelve, and fourteen are presented as interludes where readers can pause and explore specific aspects of knowledge development in reference to their own nursing practice and research. The sixth chapter discusses knowledge translation in terms relevant to the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) project, and presents models along with specific guidelines for the DNP project process. Chapter eight talks about creating a nursing intervention out of a passion for theory and practice. The tenth chapter presents history and future possibilities of clinical scholarship. The goal of chapter eleven is to guide and encourage nurses to be knowledge generators by engaging in practice-based evidence research in settings where they may practice or teach, from point-of-care with patients to system level health care. Chapter thirteen presents a paradigm for the production of practice-based knowledge. The final chapter addresses ethical and epistemic considerations as rationales for the move to practice-based evidence research beyond traditional evidence-based practice procedures. The book is intended for graduate-level nursing students, particularly students enrolled in DNP and PhD programs, nurse practitioner students, and master’s level nursing students.