Rita F. D'Aoust

Military and veteran's health integration across missions: How a college of nursing “joined forces”

BACKGROUND To address the unique needs of our returning military and veterans, the White House initiated the Joining Forces campaign and has encouraged colleges of nursing throughout the nation to support this mission. METHODS At the University of South Florida College of Nursing, we have implemented a multifaceted approach that addresses education, research, and employment. These military-related programs have been unified under our RESTORE LIVES (Research and Education to Rehabilitate and Restore the Lives of Veterans, Services Members and their Families) initiative. RESULTS To accomplish this mission, we enhanced our curriculum to include veteran health care issues, developed research that addresses veteran wellness, launched an accelerated program to enable veterans and military personnel with medical experience to obtain their baccalaureate in nursing, and encouraged a culture within the college that is supportive of military-based health care and employment needs. CONCLUSIONS We have shared our experiences through webinars and presentations and by hosting a national conference.

Evidence-based program requirements: evaluation of statistics as a required course.

A retrospective student record review was conducted to determine how achievement in a prerequisite statistics course related to achievement in nursing research courses and the overall program for undergraduate and graduate nursing students. For undergraduate students (n=218 generic, n=111 RN/BS), the statistics grade was associated with 4.3 percent of the variance in research course grades and 6.8 percent of the variance in graduating grade point average (GPA), controlling for entering GPA. For students in accelerated second-degree programs (n=33), there were minimal differences in mean research course grades and graduating GPA between students with and without prior statistics courses. For masters degree students (n=160), higher statistics grades were not associated with graduate research course grades. At best, the amount of prediction associated with statistics course grades was found to be small and not educationally meaningful. The value of statistics as a program requirement for undergraduate or graduate nursing students cannot be supported by these analyses.

Military Serving at What Cost? The Effects of Parental Service on the Well-Being Our Youngest Military Members.

Since the onset of war in Iraq and Afghanistan in April 2002, much attention has been given to the effect of war on servicemen and servicewomen who have now been serving in combat for over thirteen years, the longest sustained war in American history. Many service members have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and suffered from the visible and invisible wounds of war. Much work has been done in the Veterans Administration, the Department of Defense, and the civilian sector after observing the effects of multiple deployments and overall military service on the service member. A survey of the literature revealed that the ethics of conducting research on programs to assist these brave men and women is fraught with ethical concerns based on a military culture that often precludes autonomy and privacy. While strides have been made in developing strategies to assist service members deal with their military service issues, a serious lack of information exists on the impact of a parents service on the health and well-being of military children. A discussion of current research on services for children is presented with an analysis of the ethical problems that have precluded adequate study of those who need societys help the most.

Supporting medics' and corpsmen's move into professional nursing.

• Service members/veterans express frustration with barriers to accessing nursing education.

For caregiver sleep: Not all stressors are created equal

Background: Providing care for an elderly with dementia has been described as a stressful experience that may erode psychological well-being of caregivers.Methods:A survey was conducted with 21 family caregivers. They were aged 37 to 77 years (mean 59 years), being 66.7% female and 57.1% spouses of patients with AD, 47.6% had higher education, 61.9% worked outside the home, 66.5% had monthly household income of up to five minimum wages (R

Relationship among low cholesterol levels, depressive symptoms, aggression, hostility, and cynicism

3,110.00) and 80% of caregivers lived in the same household as the elderly with AD. Procedures: Interviews were conducted with caregivers, using a sociodemographics form, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Satisfaction with Life Domains Scale (health, physical ability, mental capacity and social involvement), Positive Affect and Negative Affects Scale and Geriatric Depression Scale. For statistical analysis we used the Spearman’s correlation coefficient (rs), considered statistically significant when P< 0. 05). Results: The statistically significant results were: positive association between positive affect and satisfaction with life (rs 1⁄4 0.648), between positive affect and satisfaction with health (rs1⁄4 0.497), between satisfaction with life and satisfaction with social involvement (rs 1⁄4 0.597), between satisfaction with physical ability and satisfaction with health (rs 1⁄4 0.697), between satisfaction with physical ability and satisfaction with the mental capacity (rs 1⁄4 0.476). We found negative associations between measures: positive affect and depressive symptoms (rs 1⁄4 -0.868), satisfaction with life and depressive symptoms (rs 1⁄4 -0.501), satisfaction with health and depressive symptoms (rs1⁄4 -0.468).Conclusions: The relationship betweenmeasures of psychological well-being studied among caregivers of elderly patients with AD is consistent with findings in the literature. Depressive symptoms are correlated with lower levels of subjective well-being.