Creative Nursing

Public health practitioners and scientists in the United States have been attempting to limit the damage from a perfect storm caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic and resulting economic downturn, increasing racial tensions as a result of the witnessed public murder of a Black man at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, and increasing gun violence. Many citizens of the United States have become distrustful of government, and political tensions remain high following the contested presidential election in the fall of 2020. Therefore, public health recommendations to limit social gatherings, wear masks, and limit travel have been met with both support and resistance throughout the nation. If the COVID-19 virus can be effectively managed, it will require the public to adhere to public health recommendations. The health of all of us depends on the health of each of us.

The U.S. public health system has been challenged in constructive ways over the past year, from fighting a novel virus to managing the resulting pandemic, and surmounting pressure from the general public to reconcile past and present trauma fueled by health and racial inequities that claim lives and perpetuate physical, mental, and emotional harm in predominantly Black, Indigenous, and other non-white communities. Through term definitions, discussion of the current literature, and content expert opinions, this article reveals the casual yet calculated manner in which unconscious bias saturates health care and the governing public health systems in the United States, and presents a call to action for professionals in the public health field to keep racial and health equity at the forefront of solutions to the “wicked problems” faced in this field.

As Duty Bearers, nurses are prime guardians, not only of the right to life (as stated in Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the human right to life, liberty, and security”) but also the rights of women, the rights of children, and the rights of people in minority groups, among others. As Claim Holders, nurses have substantial claims towards labor rights, economic rights, maternity rights, and social protection rights, among others. This article presents systematic information about social determinants of health and explores nurses ‘inherent obligations in this domain, suggesting that nursing education must innovate, adding a human rights component to address the role of Promoters of Social Change.

The high level of gun violence in the United States is unique. Self-harm is the leading reason for death from a gun in the white population, and homicide is the leading reason for death from a gun in the Black population. Because three-quarters of gun owners say they could never see themselves not owning a gun, and half of gun owners say owning a gun is important to their overall identity, the path to reducing deaths and other harm from guns is narrow and must be tread with knowledge and skill. The experience of other countries and that of states like Connecticut and Indiana is evidence that gun safety laws — in particular, universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders — can reduce deaths and injury due to gun violence. Safe storage for firearms, preferably out of the home, also reduces the risk of death and injury from guns. The goal of this article, after briefly describing the intensity and causes of gun violence in the United States, is to give the reader some basic tools to become an effective advocate for gun safety and gun violence reduction.

In some countries, there is a serious public stigma against people with mental health disorders that is transferred to those in close association with people suffering from these disorders, such as family members and health-care professionals, a process called associative stigma. The stigma against mental health nurses comes not only from the general public but also from other health-care workers, including nurses themselves. Some nursing education curricula contain little information about mental health, such that prospective nurses graduate with poor knowledge of mental health, reflected in the small number willing to specialize in mental health nursing, especially in developing countries where this stigma is at its peak. Nurses who form a vital part of the mental health team must rise and defend themselves through advocacy for policies to protect world mental health.

This article describes a health teaching initiative as a community-based experience for junior-level baccalaureate nursing students in their pediatric course. The students created and taught health promotion education sessions, along with an activity involving developmentally appropriate gross and fine motor skills, to elementary school students ages 4–9 years. The nursing students were able to reinforce their understanding of developmentally appropriate education techniques and activities. The elementary students had opportunities to learn about various health promotion topics and had an opportunity to practice their gross and fine motor skills.

This study aimed to describe the impact of mutuality, anxiety, and depression on quality of life (QoL) in patients with heart failure (HF) using cross-sectional, convenient, and consecutive sampling. A total of 97 patients were recruited. Sociodemographic and clinical variables and self-report measures of anxiety, depression, mutuality, and QoL were collected. The results highlighted the pivotal role of mutuality (specifically the domain of shared values between patients and their caregivers) in determining perceptions of physical health. Conversely, depression was a negative determinant of perceptions of both physical and mental health. Future research is needed to describe in-depth and longitudinally the associations between mutuality and QoL in patients with HF.

A video production activity utilizing a flipped-classroom approach was used in a public health nursing course to educate undergraduate nursing students about infectious diseases. After reviewing an audio-recorded lecture at home, students were divided into small groups to create short video clips on selected infectious diseases. Four themes emerged from the subsequent participant survey: engagement, in-depth understanding but concerns for new knowledge acquisition, practical, and room for improvement. The flipped classroom approach with video production encouraged students to engage in their public health nursing class and provided them with an opportunity to practice important communication skills.

This article is a report of a project to improve the quality and duration of sleep among patients ages 3–17 years in an outpatient mental health clinic. The Pediatric Insomnia Severity Index (PISI) (now the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic Sleep Questionnaire) was administered at baseline. Patients and parents were provided with education about the American Academy of Pediatrics sleep tips. Compliance with the sleep tips was tracked using an electronic health record (EHR) checklist. The PISI was administered again after the interventions and showed overall improvement in sleep quality and duration. Some patients experienced no change or a decline in sleep quality or duration and some had an increase in daytime somnolence.