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Börner, H. E. (2008). Evaluating safe patient handling systems: Is there a better way? Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: This observational study analyses the responses of 38 nurses from two similar units that use different patient handling systems to test the reliability and validity of the Safe Patient Handling Survey (TM) SPH Survey(TM), a perception survey and improvement tool for employees and employers. Currently there is a lack of tools for evaluating patient handling systems. The survey contains 55 questions divided into 6 clusters, staff and patient injury and violence questions, and picture questions depicting unsafe techniques. The data were analysed to see how the SPH Survey(TM) scores correlate with incidents, and its ability to detect differences between the two units. The results of the Pearson and Cronbach(TM) alpha tests show strong reliability, validity and consistency of the SPH Survey(TM). ANOVA comparison of means and Spearman(TM) rho tests shows that higher (better) scores on the SPH Survey(TM) clusters correlate with lower numbers of patient injuries, lower reports of verbal and physical violence episodes, and lower staff injuries. Differences were detected between the units with Unit 2 scoring higher than Unit 1 in all SPH Survey(TM) clusters and scoring lower in staff and patient injuries and violence incidents. Although the analysis was limited by the small sample size, the study has created a sound basis for further investigation. The SPH Survey(TM) is shown to be an easy way to reliably evaluate patient handling systems and workplace culture, target improvement initiatives, and continually monitor the level of patient handling risk in the workplace. Low-risk patient handling gives health care providers the means to focus on delivering high quality patient care, without endangering their own health and well-being.
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Mockford, A. (2008). An exploratory descriptive study of the needs of parents after their young child is discharged from hospital following an admission with an acute illness. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: This study investigated issues surrounding the high numbers of preventable admissions of young children with acute illnesses, particularly amongst Maori and Pacific children. It focuses on what happens once these children are discharged. Its aims were to find out what the expressed needs of parents were, as they cared for their child, once home. Whilst there has been a small amount of international research undertaken in this area, there is little known about expressed parent need in the New Zealand context. This exploratory descriptive study involved parents of under five year old children, who had been admitted to a hospital, with one of five acute illnesses. Eighteen parents were surveyed over the telephone. This study found the parents expressed a need for reassurance and advice once home, and that they worried about their child getting sick again. It highlighted gaps in discharge planning and support. None of the parents had received a written discharge plan for their child. Only five parents had received either a contact number for advice or a referral back to their primary care provider. This study found that whilst some parents considered their discharge needs had been met, others considered that they had not. Four local discharge practice opportunities to support these families were recommended, these included, providing parents and caregivers with an individualised written discharge plan, giving a contact number for advice after discharge, offering a follow-up phone call in the first 48 hours, and ensuring that all children have a referral back to their primary health care provider. Areas for further research were highlighted, including the need for a larger study to explore and compare the needs of rural and urban parents, and Maori and Pacific parents.
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Trenberth, D. (2008). New Zealand families' beliefs about what constitutes successful management of unsupervised childcare. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: This study explored what some New Zealand families believe constitutes the successful management of unsupervised childcare. It was designed to increase social understanding and practitioner knowledge of the issue by exploring families' beliefs, practices and perspectives. The researcher was concerned with the professional role nurses may play with this group of children. A qualitative descriptive approach was used to obtain a straight description of successful unsupervised childcare, using the everyday language of the participating families. Data was collected in semi structured interviews with five family groups, and subjected to content and thematic analysis. Findings suggest unsupervised childcare is both choice and solution, though parents are fearful of the legal and social consequences of using it. Context of the care is important, with the child's preference, community context and availability of adults through distal supervision critical components of its success. Trust between parent and child, the use of rules and boundaries to regulate child behaviour, the teaching of skills and strategies to build child competency, and parental support of children while unsupervised are identified by parents as factors linked to success. Parents identify increasing child independence and self responsibility as positive outcomes from the successful use of unsupervised childcare. This study has helped to identify positive factors resulting in good outcomes from which successful interventions could be developed, provides information that will be of particular interest to practitioners and policy makers, and provides a platform to launch larger studies into the issue of unsupervised children.
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Dickinson, A. R. (2004). Within the web: The family/practitioner relationship in the context of chronic childhood illness. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: This study explores the phenomenon of the relationships between practitioners and families who have a child with a chronic illness. Using a heremeneutic phenomenological method informed by the writings of Martin Heidegger [1889-1976] and Hans-Georg Gadamer [1900-2002], this study provides an understanding of the meaning of 'being in relationship' from the perspective of both families and practitioners. Study participants include ten family groups who have a child with a chronic illness and twelve practitioners from the disciplines of nursing, medicine, dietetics, physiotherapy and speech therapy who work with children with chronic illness. Narrative audio-taped interviewing was the means by which the participants told their stories about times that relationships worked well and when they did not. These stories uncover the every day realities of 'being in relationship' and provide another understanding of the relationship between family and practitioner.The findings of this thesis suggest that chronic childhood illness 'throws' families and practitioners together into a web of relationships that must work for the sake of the child. The relationship is primarily conducted between adults. Children are usually excluded. In order to understand and manage the child's illness, practitioners and families 'go around' and act 'in-between' relationships. While the quality of the relationship from the family perspective is not essential to the chronic illness journey, relationships are more successful when practitioners recognise the uniqueness of each family web. The nature of the relationship is often simple, yet it co-exists with complexity. This thesis proposes that a 'companion relationship' between practitioners and family may offer a more effective and satisfying way of working. It also challenges practitioners to consider the voice of children within health care relationships.
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Adams, K. (2003). A postmodern/poststructural exploration of the discursive formation of professional nursing in New Zealand 1840 – 2000. Ph.D. thesis, , .
Abstract: This study examines the discursive formation of professional nursing in one country, as revealed by the history of nursing in New Zealand. Michel Foucault's approach to historical research signifies a different level of analysis from conventional approaches, focusing not on the history of ideas but on an understanding of the present, a history of the present. A genealogical method derived from Foucauldian poststructuralism reveals how different understandings of nursing have occurred and have governed nursing practices and scholarship in different historical contexts. The archaeological investigation in this study reveals two moments of epistemic transformation, that is, two intervals of mutation and discontinuity. The Nightingale era in the 1880s precipitated the first epistemic shift – premodernism to modernism. The transfer of nursing education from hospital based training to the tertiary education sector, followed by the introduction of the baccalaureate degree, precipitated the second epistemic shift in the 1990s, the advent of postmodernism. Encompassing these two epistemes, six historical contexts are identified, where significant disruptions to the nursing discourses overturned previously held assumptions about what constituted a nurse. Each historical context is identified by specific discursive constructs. The first is colonial caring, the second the Nightingale ethos and the third heroic, disciplined obedience. In the fourth context, nursing is framed by, and within, discourses of skilled, humanistic caring, in the fifth, scientific, task focused managerialism, and in the 1990s, the sixth context, by multiple realities in an age of uncertainty.
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Chick, D. N. P. (2003). Rural district nurses as rehabilitationists. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Woodbridge, M. (2002). From child savers to child activists: A participatory action research project with community child health nurses. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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DeSouza, R. (2002). Walking upright here: Countering prevailing discourses through reflexivity and methodological pluralism. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Kidd, J. D. (2002). What's going on? Mental health nursing in New Zealand. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Herd, C. M. F. (2001). Is it a dangerous game? Registered nurses' experiences of working with care assistants in a public hospital setting. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Walsh, C., Boyd, L., Baker, P., Gavriel, A., McClusky, N., Puckey, T. C., et al. (2001). It was time for me to leave: A participatory action research study into discharge planning from an acute mental health setting. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington.
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Hinder, G. (2000). Challenging the boundaries: An initiative to extend public health nursing practice. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Davidson, L. (2000). Family-centred care perceptions and practice: A pilot study.
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McDonald, S. (2000). A study to investigate the role of the registered nurse in an acute mental health inpatient setting in New Zealand: Perceptions versus reality. [Manukau City]: Manukau Institute of Technology.
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Delugar, A. (1999). An historical inquiry to identify the contribution Beatrice Salmon's writings made to nursing education in New Zealand, 1969-1972.
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