Abstract: Performs a qualitative study exploring the use of a pictogram developed by nurses during a rapid-access chest pain clinic consultation, to assist patient communication about their chest pain. Interviews 10 patients, 5 Maori and 5 non-Maori, for their feedback on the pictogram's usefulness. Considers the utility of the pictogram for both patients and nurses leading the chest pain clinic.

Abstract: This article discusses the issues that one nurse researcher faced during participant observation in three New Zealand nursing homes. These include the complexity of the nurse researcher role, the blurring of role boundaries, and various ethical concerns that arose, including the difficulties of ensuring that all those who were involved in the study were kept informed as to the researcher's role and purpose. Strategies used to maintain ethical and role integrity are outlined, with further debate and discussion around fieldwork issues and experiences for nurse researchers called for.

Abstract: In this article the author discusses the New Zealand legislation aimed at protecting the individual's right to privacy and concludes that practice may place healthcare consumers' rights at risk. While patient privacy should be of concern to all health professionals, the focus here is on the nurse's role in relation to recently formulated competencies published by the Nursing Council of New Zealand, which includes the recommendation that care be seen to exhibit an awareness of healthcare consumers' rights to privacy alongside the expectation that nurses question practices that compromise patient privacy.

Abstract: Assesses the impact of environmental changes on patient reportable events (falls and aggression) in older persons' wards, using the Kings Fund Healing the Healthy Environment tool to make small changes to a ward environment in order to create a more 'dementia-friendly' setting. Conducts a comparative analysis of incidents in the wards. Obtains staff perspectives on the changes, which included large-face clocks, identifiction of bed spaces, lavender oil diffusion, and viewing gardens.

Abstract: This phenomenological study described the lived experience of patients within a surgical secondary care setting, and explored patients' perceptions of nurses' practice. The participants in the study were five adult patients who experienced a period of hospitalization within the surgical secondary care setting.This study was influenced by the work of Patricia Benner (1984) who entered the lived world of nurses' practice, through description of nurses' clinical exemplars. In this study, a qualitative research approach was used to enter the lived world of the patient within the surgical secondary setting.The research approach followed Max Van Manen's phenomenological hermeneutic method of 'Researching Lived Experience". This approach includes turning to a phenomenon of concern and interest to the researcher, investigating the experience as it is lived, reflecting on essential themes that emerge from the investigation, describing the phenomenon and bringing it to speech. The data that emerged from the participants stories of their experiences with the surgical secondary care setting, revealed four essential themes. These themes included 'feeling valued', 'human to human contact', 'two way communication', and 'feeling safe'. These themes provided insights into the participants' perceptions of nurses' practice.The participants' stories revealed a range of perceptions about nurses' practice, and the extent to which nurses in their practice valued the patient, had human to human contact, kept the patient informed and ensured patient safety. The themes revealed times when nurses' practice was perceived as dependent and powerless, in the face of, traditional views of womens' work, and the hierarchical and beurocratic constraints of the institution. At times it was also hidden from view, missed or misunderstood. Despite this, nurses' practice was seen as the central and pivotal point, from which the participants were able to make their recovery

Abstract: There has been considerable public debate on the range of complementary health practices throughout the western world, perhaps especially in Australia, United States and Europe. Most often, the research critique of these practices is restricted to quantitative or non-user qualitative research methodologies. Consequently, there is a significant gap in the research profile of complementary health services that need to be addressed particularly in view of the rapid and ongoing increase in the use of complementary services, even in the face of sometimes adverse media publicity. This paper demonstrates the contribution that phenomenologically-based research can make to fill this lacuna by explicating, in detail, the client experience of a complementary health practice. The paper explores patient experience of a ginger compress, as applied by anthroposophically trained nurses, to demonstrate various therapeutic effects. Four key themes emerged including an increase in warmth and internal activity in the major organs of the body, changes in thought-life and sensory perception along with a greater sense of well-being and self-focus with the perception of clearer personal boundaries. These themes, emerging from a patient sample in New Zealand, compared favourably to the Filderklinik Study completed in 1992 in a large German state hospital.

Abstract: This thesis is about what the author terms the 'invisible bodies of nursing'. The physical body of the nurse, the body of practice, and the body of knowledge. The physical body of the nurse is absent in most nursing literature, it is sometimes inferred but seldom discussed. The contention is that the physical body of the nurse is invisible because it is tacit. Much nursing practice is invisible because it is perceived by many nurses to be inarticulable and is carried out within a private discourse of nursing, silently and secretly. Nursing knowledge is invisible because it is not seen as being valid or authoritative or sanctioned as a legitimate discourse by the dominant discourse. These issues are approach through an evolving 'specular' lens. Luce Irigaray's philosophy of the feminine and her deconstructing and reconstructing of psychoanalytic structures for women inform this work. Michel Foucault's genealogical approach to analysing discourses is utilized, along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Nursing's struggle for recognition is ongoing. The author discusses strategies that nurses could use to make themselves more 'visible' in healthcare structures. The exploration of the embodied self of the nurse and through this the embodied knowledge of nursing is nascent.