Betty D. Pearson

Improving Elders' Continence State

A 6-month study was conducted to assess the effects that noninvasive self-managed interventions on 12 remediable risk factors had on elders urinary continence status. Each remediable risk factor was linked with a criterion meeting normal and (f not normal, one or more interventions. Continence history assessments were conducted monthly on 31 elders (M age = 67.65 years). After the first assessment elders were identified as continent, incontinent or at risk for loss of continence. At the end of the 6 months, 9 of the 11 continent elders moved to the at-risk group and the other 2 remained incontinent, and 12 of the 20 at-risk elders became continent Both the elders who were initially at risk and those who were incontinent had a statistically significant reduction in the number of remediable risk factors reported at the end of the study periods The assessments and interventions are useful.

A guideline for the nation: Managing urinary incontinence

The urinary incontinence (UI) guideline recommends a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of incontinence, one of the most costly, widely underreported and underdiagnosed health problems in the United States today. While nurses are not the only deliverers of care, the guideline places them on the front line in the identification, treatment, and prevention of incontinence.

Problems of aging: Urinary incontinence prevention

This exploratory study focused on identification of risk factors, the criteria establishing risk, and associated preventive strategies for diagnosis and treatment of urinary incontinence. Sixty-eight women were assessed for actual and potential urinary incontinence. Data collected each month included demographics, medical diagnoses, medications, environmental features, mobility, mental status, and presence or absence of eleven probable risk factors drawn from an extensive review of the literature. Women learned one or more noninvasive treatment strategies linked to their risks. Pretreatment analysis identified 55 women at risk and 13 as incontinent. Posttreatment, 9 were incontinent (1 at-risk woman became incontinent). Greater numbers of risk factors were experienced by the incontinent women. Posttreatment, 7 of the incontinent women eliminated from 1 to 5 risk factors. Risk-factor identification and correction are essential for concerted prevention efforts. The results are clinically important.

Book Reviews : NEWMAN, M. D. (1986). Health as Expanding Consciousness. St. Louis: Mosby, 147 pp

a theoretical perspective such as the one presented is required to advance science beyond the confines of traditional ways of thinking. Because the evolution of nursing science through conceptualizing and theorizing is key to a disciplinary knowledge base, it is understandable that she cannot entirely avoid the issue in a book about concepts and theories. It is a credit to Newman that she has attempted to explicate such an abstract and the-

Effects of narrator gender on conceptual learning

Audiovisual materials for nursing students typically show a female nurse demon-strating activities as they are described (and sometimes directed) by a male narrator. Of obvious concern is the effect of such sex stereotyping on female students. Further, do students (male and female) learn as well from instructional video-tapes narrated by an equally competent female narrator? The investigator sought to control all variables but gender of narrator in this study of conceptual learning from videotapes.