Lazelle E. Benefield

Time Management Strategies for Research Productivity

Researchers function in a complex environment and carry multiple role responsibilities. This environment is prone to various distractions that can derail productivity and decrease efficiency. Effective time management allows researchers to maintain focus on their work, contributing to research productivity. Thus, improving time management skills is essential to developing and sustaining a successful program of research. This article presents time management strategies addressing behaviors surrounding time assessment, planning, and monitoring. Herein, the Western Journal of Nursing Research editorial board recommends strategies to enhance time management, including setting realistic goals, prioritizing, and optimizing planning. Involving a team, problem-solving barriers, and early management of potential distractions can facilitate maintaining focus on a research program. Continually evaluating the effectiveness of time management strategies allows researchers to identify areas of improvement and recognize progress.

Aging in Place: Merging Desire with Reality

Barriers to aging in place include physical mobility and transportation limitations, isolation related loneliness and depression, diminishing health status, housing quality, finances, and caregiving resources. The scope of the aging demographic shift, economic consequences and loss of quality of life urge adoption of such successful approaches as the life course model. Desirable aging in place provides person-centered quality of living that is independence-effective and affordable. Systematic community-centered and person-centered approaches are crucial to accomplishing the central actions of the life course model. Not only are the actions necessary, they are interactive, interdependent, and strategic in supporting one another.

Strategies for a successful PhD program: words of wisdom from the WJNR Editorial Board.

Nursing doctoral programs prepare students for research-focused careers within academic settings. The purpose of this Editorial Board Special Article is to provide PhD students and advisors with suggestions for making the most of their doctoral experience. Editorial Board members provide their individual insights on the skills and attributes students must acquire during the course of their doctoral education in order to succeed. The authors provide practical tips and advice on how to excel in a PhD program, including how to select an advisor and a dissertation committee, the importance of attending conferences to increase visibility and develop a network of colleagues, presenting and publishing research while still a student, and balancing work and personal life. Students who take full advantage of the opportunities available to them during the course of their doctoral programs will graduate well prepared to take on the multiple responsibilities of research, teaching, and leadership.

Managing Opportunities and Challenges of Co-Authorship

Research with the largest impact on practice and science is often conducted by teams with diverse substantive, clinical, and methodological expertise. Team and interdisciplinary research has created authorship groups with varied expertise and expectations. Co-authorship among team members presents many opportunities and challenges. Intentional planning, clear expectations, sensitivity to differing disciplinary perspectives, attention to power differentials, effective communication, timelines, attention to published guidelines, and documentation of progress will contribute to successful co-authorship. Both novice and seasoned authors will find the strategies identified by the Western Journal of Nursing Research Editorial Board useful for building positive co-authorship experiences.

Transitional care interventions: Relevance for nursing in the community

OBJECTIVES The coordination and integration of health care is compromised by complex challenges related to transitions between care settings, greater prevalence of chronic health conditions, and older individuals with increasing levels of dependency. Transitional care incorporates a broad range of services designed to provide care continuity. This systematic review aims to synthesize and present findings regarding the relevance of transitional care interventions to community nursing. DESIGN AND SAMPLE A systematic search of electronic databases was conducted as part of a larger review to identify evidence-based interventions to support a model to guide nursing and midwifery in the community in Ireland. All relevant empirical studies published in English between 2010 and 2015 were included. MEASURES Studies were assessed based on inclusion criteria. The Cochrane Risk of Bias and AMSTAR tools were used to assess the methodological quality of studies. Key themes and concepts were extracted and synthesized. RESULTS Transitional care interventions had significant positive effects in reducing all-cause readmissions, mortality, and heart failure-related rehospitalizations. CONCLUSION Effective transitional care requires excellent communication between acute and primary care providers. This has implications for integration and organization of care across settings and nursing competence.

Strategies to Build Authorship Competence Among PhD Students.

Publication in refereed journals is an important responsibility of PhD-prepared nurses. Specialized writing skills are crucial for effective professional publication. The capacity to develop and publish articles is best learned during doctoral education. This Western Journal of Nursing Research Editorial Board Special Article addresses multi-dimensional strategies to develop authorship competence among doctoral students. The article outlines structured PhD program experiences to provide the context for students to develop authorship capacity. The authors identify multi-faceted faculty endeavors and student activities that are essential to foster authorship competence. Students who embrace opportunities to acquire authorship qualifications will be well prepared for their post-graduation role as stewards of the nursing discipline.

Launching Successful Beginnings for Early Career Faculty Researchers

Junior faculty follow a research path replete with challenges as they strive to create knowledge in their area of interest while balancing new responsibilities. Unlike graduate school, where students focus inward on personal development, junior faculty must add responsibilities in ways that hold them accountable as members of a university. This special article deals with three themes of interest to new junior faulty launching research programs: personal development, collaboration and team development within university settings, and funding advice. Strategies in these areas provide guidance on navigating early careers and finding success in the academic setting.

Pearls and Pitfalls of Team Science

Formidable health problems are often best addressed by teams of scientists with varied expertise. This diversity among team members and complexities in managing teams can lead to challenges in designing, funding, conducting, and reporting research. Team science difficulties can be addressed by sophisticated planning, frequent reassessment and realignment of team strategies with goals, and consistent transparent communication. This article addresses specific strategies to build and sustain research teams, manage team meetings, strategically develop publications and grants, thrive in the midst of disciplinary and individual team member differences, embrace new ideas and change to maintain creativity, and build future team scientists and projects. The potential value in team science justifies the effort required to build and maintain efficient and effective research teams.

Conceptualising a model to guide nursing and midwifery in the community guided by an evidence review

BackgroundSuccessful models of nursing and midwifery in the community delivering healthcare throughout the lifespan and across a health and illness continuum are limited, yet necessary to guide global health services. Primary and community health services are the typical points of access for most people and the location where most care is delivered. The scope of primary healthcare is complex and multifaceted and therefore requires a practice framework with sound conceptual and theoretical underpinnings.The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual model informed by a scoping evidence review of the literature.MethodsA scoping evidence review of the literature was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. Databases included CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and SocINDEX using the EBSCO platform and the Cochrane Library using the keywords: model, nursing, midwifery, community, primary care. Grey literature for selected countries was searched using the Google ‘advanced’ search interface. Data extraction and quality appraisal for both empirical and grey literature were conducted independently by two reviewers. From 127 empirical and 24 non-empirical papers, data extraction parameters, in addition to the usual methodological features, included: the nature of nursing and midwifery; the population group; interventions and main outcomes; components of effective nursing and midwifery outcomes.ResultsThe evidence was categorised into six broad areas and subsequently synthesised into four themes. These were not mutually exclusive: (1) Integrated and Collaborative Care; (2) Organisation and Delivery of Nursing and Midwifery Care in the Community; (3) Adjuncts to Nursing Care and (4) Overarching Conceptual Model. It is the latter theme that is the focus of this paper. In essence, the model depicts a person/client on a lifespan and preventative-curative trajectory. The health related needs of the client, commensurate with their point position, relative to both trajectories, determines the nurse or midwife intervention. Consequently, it is this need, that determines the discipline or speciality of the nurse or midwife with the most appropriate competencies.ConclusionUse of a conceptual model of nursing and midwifery to inform decision-making in primary/community based care ensures clinical outcomes are meaningful and more sustainable. Operationalising this model for nursing and midwifery in the community demands strong leadership and effective clinical governance.

Aging in place: a life course perspective.

Aging in place, whereby older adults remain at home or a similar preferred setting for as long as possible with asmuch ability and dignity as possible, involves addressing healthand age-related changes within a coordinated plan of health care, social, financial, housing, technology, and resource use. The need to consider issues surrounding health care in an aging population is painfully urgent. Challenges to older adults for dealing with longer life, declining health, and fewer resources are highly complex. Seeking approaches that facilitate aging in place poses challenges beyond health care and no generic plan can adequately meet every older adult’s needs. An integrative approach, viewing problems and solutions from a life course perspective makes sense on several levels. Derived from life course theory, the approach has been used by social scientists for decades to analyze people’s lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts. The need for solutions to promote and maintain health, offer social support, and assure safe environments calls for interprofessional and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The idyllic dreams of restful recreation, vacation travel, or visits to relatives are often economically or physically impossible. Planning for the future for many adults has been inadequate, based on unrealistic expectations of what advanced age would actually be like. Many older persons reside in residences not fully supportive of their life stage needs. Most homes fall into the category of “Peter Pan housing,” quips Dr Jon Pynoos, professor at USC Davis School of Gerontology. The term refers to houses designed for persons who are never going to age and consequently are plagued with obstacles in three major areas: getting in and out of the house, up and down stairs, and using the bathroom. Home infrastructure deteriorates over time and is compounded by physical demands associated with home maintenance and increases in property taxes and utility costs. Limited or no access to transportation due to the built