Although most women find it difficult to provide care to an older family member, some women face additional challenges and health risks because the care recipient is abusive or aggressive toward them. This study tested a 12-week psychoeducative nursing intervention intended to decrease the frequency and intensity of physical and verbal/psychological aggression toward older caregiving wives and daughters by care recipients and improve selected abuse-related outcomes. The intervention, which focused on pattern identification, advocacy counseling, reframing of the caregiving situation, and nonconfrontational caregiving strategies, was individualized and highly interactive with emphasis placed on mutual problem solving and mutual planning. Subjects included women older than 50 who provided care to elders older than 55. Subjects were randomly assigned to group (intervention, N = 38; control, N = 45) and data collectors were “blinded” to group assignment. Findings indicated the intervention significantly reduced frequency of verbal/psychological aggression, and feelings of anger for caregivers providing care to fathers or husbands. It was not effective for caregivers providing care to mothers, and it did not reduce burden. Implications for nursing include raising awareness about the special vulnerabilities of older caregivers, providing provocative new information about the gender-based power dynamics in caregiving situations and underscoring the need for nurses to assume a stronger leadership role in building science with regard to family caregiving.
Phillips,LR
School of Nursing, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90005, USA. lrphillips@sonnet.ucla.edu
he purpose of this article is to describe the experiences of adult women who, when they were children, experienced the homicide of their mother by their father. Two qualitative interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 31 women survivors of uxoricide to create a qualitative description of the phenomenon. A number of themes have emerged including descriptions of the daughter “seeking understanding,” “forgiving the father” (or not), and descriptions of the father in terms of his being her father or in terms of his behavior and the homicide.
Laughon,K Steeves,RH Parker,B Knopp,A Sawin,EM
University of Virginia School of Nursing, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA. klc6e@virginia.edu
Grounded in a feminist perspective, a narrative analysis of letters written by Martha Lohmann, a nurse who served with the German Army on the Eastern Front in World War II, is undertaken. Utilizing “gaze” as a focus, an exploration of the narrative and the multiple gazes embedded within it is performed. Implications for future analysis of nurses’ textual accounts of violence, armed conflict, and war are presented.
Georges,JM Benedict,S
Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, University of San Diego, San Diego, California 92110, USA. jgeorges@sandiego.edu
This philosophical analysis critically explores an archeology of militarism as an underpinning to multiple forms of violence, especially war. Deconstructing militarism and its discourses reveal it as a pervasive geographical, cultural, political, and psychological presence. New war technologies, related health and environmental problems, injuries, social suffering, and disproportionality in military spending as a threat to health are uncovered. Continuing the dialogue in formal nursing associations, critiquing media complicity in securing consent for war, and reconstructing a nonviolent, healthier world through nonviolent resistance are advocated.
McGuire-S,Sr Boyle,J
Adrian Dominican Sisters Campus, Siena Heights University, Adrian, MI 49221, USA. smcguireop@yahoo.com
Although numbers of prison inmates are increasing rapidly, limited research addresses health-related conditions prevalent in prisons. Compelling reasons exist for prison research to address high rates of psychiatric, neurological, and other health-related conditions that may precipitate or result from incarceration, high-risk behaviors, infectious disease transmission, traumatic brain injuries, and other issues related to incarceration. Prison research is critical because inmates are frequently re-incarcerated and released, posing potential risks to themselves and the community. The purpose of this article is to provide a pragmatic overview of ethical, regulatory, and investigator considerations to facilitate critically needed research with vulnerable prison populations.
Brewer-Smyth,K
School of Nursing, College of Health Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA. kbsmyth@udel.edu
There is little research guiding interventions to help old homebound women prepare to manage an intrusion event. During a phenomenological study of the experience of reaching help quickly, I compared intentions during a possible intrusion event for 9 women subscribing to a personal emergency response system and 5 nonsubscribers. The phenomenon of contemplating what I would do if an intruder got in my home had 4 components. Only 2 personal emergency response system subscribers voiced the definitive intention to use the personal emergency response system. Findings underpin a new empirical perspective of competence grounded in situations relevant to living alone at home rather than specific tasks of daily living.
Porter,EJ
Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. PorterEJ@missouri.edu
Millions of youth in the United States are involved in some aspects of bullying behavior. Increasing rates of youth violence, including horrific violent school events, have brought national attention upon the phenomenon. Bullying is a broad construct that covers a wide variety of behaviors from name calling to physical abuse, and it is associated with serious negative health outcomes. Sexual bullying appears to be antecedent to more severe forms of relationship violence, and it is proposed as a conceptual link between bullying and more advanced forms of sexualized violence, such as teen dating violence and adult forms of intimate partner violence.
Fredland,NM
Austin School of Nursing, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78701, USA. nfredland@mail.nur.utexas.edu
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a particular narrative approach in nursing, namely the photo instrument can be connected with Ricoeur’s hermeneutic philosophy. Ricoeur’s concept of mimesis, when supplemented with the concept of performance, is shown relevant for understanding how patients construct and reformulate meaning in illness experiences. A single-case study is presented for a tentative exploration of how the key concepts of mimesis and performance can broaden our understanding of practice. More specifically it concerned the use of photographs in a group with psychiatric patients.
Sitvast,JE Abma,TA Widdershoven,GA Lendemeijer,HH
GGNet, Network for Mental Healthcare in the Region Oost Gelderland, Warnsveld, The Netherlands. j.sitvast@ggnet.nl
Although environment is a core concept in nursing, it has had little theoretical or empirical attention, especially related to healing. This article explores the following aspects of the meaning of healing as they relate to environment as place: (a) healing is grounded in suffering; (b) healing is active and requires presence of the patient and the nurse; and (c) healing is private, spiritual, and profound. Home is explored as a place for healing. The article explores implications for the study of meaning of home, when home is not a place for healing, and future directions for theory and research.
Marshall,ES
School of Nursing, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA. elainemarshall@georgiasouthern.edu
Much of my career has focused on knowing and understanding human wholeness, developing praxis approaches for life patterning and healing, and inquiring into the lives of the women who have been abused as children and live with despair. Sensing the desire of people to share their stories to understand their despair and being discontented with fragmenting and dehumanizing approaches to practice and research, I sought an alternative path. This article describes the personal and professional journey that led me into the lives of women, the discoveries and revelations that emerged, and an appreciation of unimagined potentials for healing. It also confirmed the need for nursing to examine its underlying assumptions of healing.
Cowling-WR,3rd
School of Nursing, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro 27402, USA. richardcowling@uncg.edu