van Wissen, K. A., Litchfield, M., & Maling, T. (1998). Living with high blood pressure. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 27(3), 567–574.
Abstract: An interdisciplinary (nursing-medicine) collaboration in a qualitative descriptive research project undertaken in the Wellington School of Medicine with New Zealand Health Research Council funding. The purpose was to inform the practice of nursing and medical practitioners. A group of patients were interviewed in their homes. Their experience of having a diagnosis of hypertension and prescription of long-term treatment requiring adjustment in their lives and the lives of their families is presented as themes.
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Litchfield, M., Clarke, M., Edwards, R., Richardson, F., Tansley, R., & Woodman, K. (1995). A description of the needs of people with cancer and support people. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: The report of a research project commissioned by the Wellington Division of the New Zealand Cancer Society to provide a foundation for policy to give direction to development of its services. The research approach and methodology had an ecological theory foundation. It involved a survey and in-depth interviews with people with cancer and those caring for them to understand their experience. Needs were identified from the data and presented according to three distinct phases in the course of living with cancer. People moved from the shock of diagnosis, through the time of treatment when usual living was suspended and focus narrowed on the intensive fight against the disease, then into a very different phase of on-going ?wait-and-see? time requiring a new way of living with uncertainty for both patient and carers. The last phase was where most of the unmet needs lay. Recommendations were made for services to provide a continuous caring relationship for patients and carers with a knowledgeable person from the point of diagnosis.
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Litchfield, M. (1979). Survey of child health care in primary schools in the Wellington area (Vol. 75). Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: The study was undertaken as a project for the International Year of the Child. There was a need for information to identify what health care in needed in schools and to contribute to a review of the role of the nurses. Teachers and principals of all primary schools of the Wellington area were surveyed to describe the health care being provided and needed. Recommendations were made for school nurses who would support the health-related teaching by teachers, provide first aid and advice, and take an extended role for family health operating from a clinic in the school.
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Litchfield, M., & Laws, M. (1999). Achieving family health and cost-containment outcomes: Innovation in the New Zealand Health Sector Reforms. In Cohen,E. & De Back,V. (Eds.), The outcomes mandate: New roles, rules and relationships. Case management in health care today (pp. 306-316). St Louis: Mosby.
Abstract: The chapter presents the research findings of the 1992-1993 Wellington Nurse Case Management Scheme Project as a distinct model of nurse case management, which introduced a role and form of practice of a family nurse and a diagram of the service delivery structure required for support and relevant for the New Zealand health system reforms.
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Jonsdottir, H., Litchfield, M., & Pharris, M. (2003). Partnership in practice. Research & Theory for Nursing Practice, 17(1), 51–63.
Abstract: This article presents a reconsideration of partnership between nurse and client as the core of the nursing discipline. It points to the significance of the relational nature of partnership, differentiating its features and form from the prevalent understanding associated with prescriptive interventions to achieve predetermined goals and outcomes. The meaning of partnership is presented within the nursing process where the caring presence of the nurse becomes integral to the health experience of the client as the potential for action. Exemplars provide illustration of this emerging view in practice and research. This is the first of a series of articles written as a partnership between nurse scholars from Iceland, New Zealand and the USA. The series draws on research projects that explored the philosophical, theoretical, ethical and practical nature of nursing practice and its significance for health and healthcare in a world of changing need.
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Litchfield, M., & Jonsdottir, H. (2008). A practice discipline that's here and now. Advances in Nursing Science, 31(1), 79–92.
Abstract: The article is a collaborative writing venture drawing on research findings from New Zealand and Iceland to contribute to the international scholarship on the status and future direction of the nursing discipline. It takes an overview of the international historical trends in nursing knowledge development and proposes a framework for contemporary nursing research that accommodates the past efforts and paradigms of nurse scholars and reflects the changing thinking around the humanness of the health circumstance as the focus of the nursing discipline. It addresses contemporary challenges facing nurses as practitioners and researchers for advancement of practice and delivery of health services, and for influencing health policy.
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Litchfield, M., & Ross, J. (2000). The role of rural nurses: National survey. Christchurch: Centre for Rural Health.
Abstract: A survey was used to reach as many nurses as possible involved with nursing in “rural” areas throughout New Zealand and to build a profile of nurses involved in the provision of healthcare beyond the urban centres. The contact also sought to inform nurses of the rural healthcare project and encourage them to contribute their experience to the development of health services in the new health service structure. Data is presented on the characteristics and employment conditions of nurses and access to resources including information technology. The inadequacy of information on the rural nurse workforce is identified: nurse roles are historically defined yet employment patterns are changing according to the workforce demands of new structures, and the existing definitions of rural health service design and delivery are only in terms of general medical practices and on-call coverage. Recommendations are made for definitions of “rurality” and “rural nurse” that will allow a more useful depiction of the nurse workforce.
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Litchfield, M. (2001). A framework of complementary models of nursing practice: A study of nursing roles and practice for a new era of healthcare provision in New Zealand. Christchurch: Centre for Rural Health.
Abstract: This is the second of a series of research projects undertaken to present the contemporary picture of the nurse workforce and their work in rural settings to inform policy for development of rural healthcare. The document presents the findings of telephone interviews with nurses in different work rural work settings around the country discussing their practice. The analysis identified a framework of four models of nursing practice: two traditional models defined by the institutions employing nurses, and two emerging models defined by the new positions requiring nurses to respond directly to health need.
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Litchfield, M. (2002). The successful design and delivery of rural health services: The meaning of success. Christchurch: Centre for Rural Health.
Abstract: This is the report of the analysis of data from an in-depth survey designed by Sue Dawson, previously Rural Health Researcher in the Centre for Rural Health, and follow-up interviews. The study purpose was to construct a definition of “successful design and delivery of rural health services” as a step towards a measurement tool. Participants were grouped as general practitioners, nurses and community representatives. A format for a participatory approach to evaluation of rural health services is derived from the criteria of success identified, with its relevance for the implementation of the new Government primary health care strategy explicit. This format provided the basis for a subsequent evaluation case study undertaken in a small rural forestry township by the Centre for Rural Health.
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Litchfield, M. (2006). Towards a people-pivotal paradigm for healthcare: Report of the Turangi primary health care nursing innovation 2003-2006.
Abstract: This report presents the findings of the developmental evaluation programme for the three-year innovation project. It includes the model of the integrative nursing service scheme with mobile whanau/family nurses as the hub of healthcare provision for a new paradigm of service design and delivery spanning primary-secondary-tertiary sectors. The form of healthcare the local people received, the nature of the nursing practice and role, service delivery and employment parameters required to support the nurses in practice are presented. The service configuration model subsequently gave the structure to Lake Taupo Primary Health Organisation with the hub of family nurses with a mobile comprehensive practice.
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Litchfield, M. (2004). Achieving health in a rural community: A case study of nurse – community partnership. Wellington: Litchfield Healthcare Associates.
Abstract: This study describes rural, nurse-led health services provided by the Takapau Health Centre (Central Hawkes Bay) and its outreach, Norsewood & District Health Centre. The study looks at its model of service delivery through to 2002. It examines the establishment, development, funding and management of the service, along with the nursing practice and the healthcare people received. The book is a snapshot of nursing initiative and survival through a decade of change in health policy and service funding and delivery. The information was subsequently used to move the health centre service into the new paradigm of primary health care launched in the New Zealand Health Strategy.
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Litchfield, M. (2005). The nursing praxis of family health. In Picard, C & Jones, D., Giving voice to what we know (pp.73-82). Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Jones & Bartlett.
Abstract: The chapter explores the process of nursing practice and how it contributes to health, derived from research undertaken in New Zealand. It presents the nature of nursing research as if practice – the researcher as if practitioner – establishing a foundation for the development of nursing knowledge that would make a distinct contribution to health and health care. It includes the philosophy and practicalities of nursing through the use of a case study of nursing a family with complex health circumstances.
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Litchfield, M. (1999). Practice wisdom. Advances in Nursing Science, 22(2), 62–73.
Abstract: The paper is the report of two cumulative research projects studying the nature of nursing knowledge and methodology to develop it. They were undertaken as theses for masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Minnesota, USA. Nursing knowledge is depicted as relational: an evolving participatory process of research-as-if-practice of which 'health' (its meaning), dialogue, partnership and pattern recognition are threads inter-related around personal values of vision and community.
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Jonsdottir, H., Litchfield, M., & Pharris, M. (). The relational core of nursing practice as partnership. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 47(3), 241–250.
Abstract: This article elaborates the meaning of partnership in practice for nurses practising in different and complementary way to nurses in specialist roles and medical practitioners. It positions partnership as the relational core of nursing practice. Partnership is presented as an evolving dialogue between nurse and patient, which is characterised by open, caring, mutually responsive and non-directive approaches. This partnership occurs within a health system that is dominated by technologically-driven, prescriptive, and outcome-oriented approaches. It is the second of a series of articles written as a partnership between nurse scholars from Iceland, NZ and USA.
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Litchfield, M. (1993). The process of health patterning in families with young children who have been repeatedly hospitalised. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: An exploration of the nature of nursing knowledge in practice. The praxis methodology was inspired by the Newman's theory of health as expanding consciousness and evolved through the process of the research. The methodology was eventually presented as both the process of research and practice. Five families were visited in their homes five times to talk about what was going on for them. All were experiencing a time of great upheaval in family life. After three visits a summary text was constructed merging researcher statements and parent quotes and given to the families. Through the subsequent reflective discussion significant insights into family pattern were shown in statements of intended action to change how health matters were managed with greater facility in family living. The process was presented as five themes with descriptors representing a non-linear, discontinuous progression: A moment of partnership: parameters of entry and closure, a timing of upheaval in family life, and an in-forming capacity through the bringing together of family story-telling and researcher's theory. An evolving dialogue: a progressive flow of enfolding and unfolding, and its embeddedness in contexts of socio-economic status, gender and health care culture. Recognising pattern: incidental revelations and an all-encompassing insight as the potential for action. Expanding horizon: moving from being on a treadmill trapped in the present without vision to having a view to a future, the presence of past and future. Increasing connectedness: a sense of inclusion, inter-dependence and generally, transformation in family life. This was a framework for personal practice
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