Rojann R. Alpers

The changing self-concept of pregnant and parenting teens

Self-concept has been recognized and researched as a powerful variable in relation to teenage pregnancy. Low self-concept frequently has been identified as a cause and consequence of teenage pregnancy as well as a factor in participation and compliance with health care recommendations. Most of the research on self-concept and teenage pregnancy occurred in the 1970s to mid-1980s, and all found lower self-concept in pregnant and parenting teens when compared with their nonpregnant contemporaries and normative data. This study found the opposite to be true. The 126 pregnant and parenting teens in this study had higher self-concepts than the reported normative group. Also, important variations in self-concept were found in relation to sociodemographics. This potentially suggests that what was once known about this aggregate is no longer true, and a reinvestigation is warranted. The purpose of this study was to reinvestigate the self-concept of pregnant and parenting teens and compare them with published normative data and to examine the relationship between sociodemographics and self-concept. The study employed a survey methodology. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, measures of central tendency and dispersion, t test, chi-square test, and analysis of variance. This study found that pregnant and parenting teens had a higher self-concept than the normative data on nonpregnant teens reported by the research instrument authors. Furthermore, this older sample of pregnant and parenting teens (mean age, 17.83 years) had self-concepts more similar to the junior high school normative sample than their senior high school-age contemporaries. Also, this study found that self-concept varies according to the pregnant and parenting teens; ages, years of schooling, types of schools attended, income sources, and receipt of public assistance. This study has implications for health care providers, health and public educators, and nursing researchers in terms of program development and evaluation, health marketing, and development of primary prevention strategies.

A Review of “Nursing and family caregiving: Social support and nonsupport”

This book provides a wealth of insight into the experience of family caregivers and describes the importance of support. Nurses, practitioners, researchers, and professionals will find this book useful, as they provide care to patients, plan programs, or develop policies intended to assist family caregivers. Armed with this essential knowledge of the best methodological approaches to family caregiving, readers will have both the insight and tools to optimize caregiving across the range of hospices, treatment facilities, and home care.

A Review of “Heroic Acts in Humble Shoes: America's Nurses Tell Their Stories”

The title of this book is most intriguing and sets the expectations high for its reading. There are 44 stories/interviews with nurses in this book that invite their ‘tales from the field’ ranging from what brought them into nursing, to memorable experiences, professional insights and their perception of heroism. I wanted to like this book because I believe the stories of nursing and nursing care are important, essential to assist others to understand our work and commitment, and to help inform and transform our individual practice. However, I found this book to be too regionally biased and too practice—nursing doing—centered. For me, nursing is something I know and the doing comes from my knowledge and ability to create individualized care from that knowledge. I found the experiences shared to be less reflective of all we know and too focused on what we do. I would like to have seen more stories such as “Open Window,” “Making a Difference for Nurses,” and “Paradigm Shift”; to me, these stories used their practice as a spring board to demonstrate what we know (and how it guides what we do); provide suggestions on improving nursing education, our political capital, our leadership development and our local and national voices; and makes us think beyond ourselves into the larger professional arena. Interestingly, as I go back and review these specific chapters these ‘tales from the field’ were each related by master’s and doctorally prepared nurses. Clearly, this book has lovely and emotion-rife stories, many brought back memories of my days on the frontlines and yes, a couple of times my eyes welled up; but overall, I found the chapters becoming redundant, the stories a little too self absorbed and the general message of nursing ‘doing’ rather than nursing ‘knowing’ and ‘becoming’, tedious. I like the idea of capturing and sharing nurse’s stories and I would urge the next iteration to reflect more educational and regional diversity and perhaps consider building

A Review of “Critical care: A new nurse faces death, life and everything in between”

I love reading “tales from the field” of nursing, but, I must admit, I was beginning to wonder if there were any new stories or at least new ways to tell the stories that would capture my interest....