Mary Jane Smith

Middle range theory: spinning research and practice to create knowledge for the new millennium.

The foundation of middle range theory reported during the past decade was described and analyzed. A CINAHL search revealed 22 middle range theories that met selected criteria. This foundation is a firm base for new millennium theorizing. Recommendations for future theorizing include: clear articulation of theory names and approaches for generating theories; clarification of concept linkages with inclusion of diagrammed models; deliberate attention to research-practice connections of theories; creation of theories in concert with the disciplinary perspective; and, movement of middle range theories to the front lines of nursing research and practice for further analysis, critique, and development.

Story theory: advancing nursing practice scholarship.

Stories are a fundamental dimension of human experience and nursing practice. Story theory describes a narrative happening that occurs through intentional nurse-person dialogue. Seven inquiry phases are associated with story theory, including gathering the story, reconstructing the story, connecting it to the literature, naming the complicating health challenge, describing the story plot, identifying movement toward resolving, and gathering additional stories. This article describes the use of story theory to advance nursing practice scholarship in both academic and everyday nursing practice.

Enhancing esthetic knowledge: a teaching strategy.

This article describes a teaching strategy that has been used with graduate students to enhance their esthetic knowing through representing, interpreting, and envisioning the lived experience of a caring presence in nursing practice. As students engaged in reflecting, writing, and discussion, the explicit and tacit meanings associated with a caring presence unfolded in esthetic knowing in nursing.

Psychosocial variables and self-rated health in young adult obese women

AIM The aim of this study is to describe relationships among self-rated health, stress, sleep quality, loneliness, and self-esteem, in obese young adult women. BACKGROUND Obesity has steadily increased among young adults and is a major predictor of self-rated health. METHODS A sample of 68 obese (BMI 30 or higher, mean 35), young (18-34 years, mean 22) adult women were recruited from a health center. Survey data were gathered and analyzed using descriptive and bivariate procedures to assess relationships and group differences. RESULTS Scores reflected stress, loneliness, poor sleep quality, and poor self-esteem. There were positive correlations among stress, loneliness, and sleep quality and, a high inverse correlation between loneliness and self-esteem. Those who ranked their health as poor differed on stress, loneliness, and self-esteem when compared to those with rankings of good/very good. CONCLUSIONS Assessing and addressing stress, loneliness, sleep quality and self-esteem could lead to improved health outcomes in obese young women.

Attending to the voice of adolescents who are overweight to promote mental health.

Archiv prevalence rate of being overweight among H adolescents has doubled in the last two decades. Data from the 2003–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicated that 18% of the adolescents surveyed were overweight (Ogden et al., 2006). Mental health consequences for adolescents who are obese and overweight include depression, body image distortions, anxiety, and social isolation (Gibson et al., 2008; Petry, Barry, Pietrzak & Wagner, 2008; Zametkin, Zoon, Klein, & Munson, 2004). The state in which this study was conducted ranks third in the nation for adult obesity and has the sixth highest level of adolescent obesity (Singh, Kogan, & Van Duyck, 2008). The qualitative study presented in this column aimed to explicate the meaning of being overweight for adolescents attending a medical clinic for weight reduction.

Perspectives of Wholeness: The Lens Makes a Difference

* West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV. Most frameworks in nursing conceptualize the person as a whole, in one way or another. The conceptualization of the person, along with the corresponding set of concepts, is used by researchers and practitioners to further identify research and practice methodologies. There is a tendency, however, to gloss over the essential meaning of wholeness within the context of the framework and not to deal with

Refining Story Inquiry as a Method for Research

From the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Altlantic University, Boca Raton FL; and West Virginia University, School of Nursing, Morgantown WN. Corresponding Author: Patricia Liehr PhD, RN, Associate Dean for Nursing Research and Scholarship, Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton FL 33487. E–mail addresses: pliehr@fau.edu (P. Liehr), mjsmith@hsc.wvu.edu (M.J. Smith).

Theory-Guided Translation: Emphasizing Human Connection

From the West Virginia University School of Nursing, Morgantown, WV. Address reprint requests to Mary Jane Smith, PhD, RN, Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs, West Virginia University School of Nursing, PO Box 9640, Morgantown, WV 26506. E-mail address: mjsmith@hsc.wvu.edu n 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0883-9417/1801-0005

The experience of women veterans coming back from war

34.00/0 doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2008.02.006 T RANSLATING RESEARCH FINDINGS into practice is predicated on research grounded in a substantive theoretical foundation. Even when a researcher has not articulated a theoretical structure guiding research, the structure is often there, implicit in the research question and the way the question is phrased. Rycroft-Malone (2007) argues that theory-informed research translation is knowledge translation that goes beyond the limited understanding of isolated research findings as evidence. Identifying a theoretical context and synthesizing research findings within a theoretical context leads to the practical application of theoryguided knowledge (Graham & Tetroe, 2007). This means that when a theoretical rationale for the research is made explicit, theory-guided translation will be expedited. The knowledge-based focus of the discipline of nursing has been a work in progress since the time of Nightingale. One of the early advocates of the relevance of theory for nursing was Hildegard E. Peplau. She proposed an interpersonal theory of nursing where she describes human connectedness as essential to health, and the nurse–patient relationship as human connectedness that transpires in nursing practice (Peplau, 1997). Story theory, a middle-range theory introduced in 1999 (Smith & Liehr, 1999), proposes connecting with self-inrelation through nurse–person intentional dialogue to create ease. The narrative happening that characterizes story sharing emerges in the midst of the human connection of intentional dialogue. Both Peplaus theory of interpersonal relations and story theory are examples of nursing theories that explicitly address the centrality of human connection for health, healing, and well-being. Sometimes, when reading nursing literature, we wonder how and where human connectedness figures into research studies. There is no doubt that this sometimes difficult-to-study phenomenon is not the only dimension of nursing knowledge that

Caring: Ubiquitous or Unique

Issues surrounding mental health are common for women veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The goal of this phenomenological study was to document themes in the stories gathered from eight women veterans who had come back from war. Themes in the stories were: arriving with mixed sentiments; evolving to a changed view of self; permeating aggravation; confounding broken relationships, frequent deployments, and change in military status; remembering war experiences; and seeking opportunity for what is possible. Mental health issues can be observed in the themes. Including story as part of the mental health visit with veterans may be beneficial to veterans as they deal with the transition of coming back.