Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Despite progress in the care and treatment of mental health problems, violence directed at self or others remains high in many parts of the world. Subsequently, there is increasing attention to risk assessment in mental health. But it this doing more harm than good?
At the dawn of the children’s hospital movement in Europe and the West (best epitomised and exemplified by the opening of London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children (GOSH) on 14 February 1852), the plight of sick children was precarious at all levels of society. After a long campaign by Dr Charles West, Great Ormond Street hospital was the first establishment to provide in-patient beds specifically for children in England.
Most of us have vaguely positive sentiments about nurses, but at the same time, nursing is plagued by feminine stereotypes that continue to undermine the profession. These double-edged views are never more striking than in efforts to honor nurses, which often rely on emotional “angel” images rather than recognition of nurses’ health skills or tangible contributions to patient outcomes.
With the Ebola virus outbreak, great debate surrounding electronic cigarettes, and other public health topics in the media headlines, 2014 was a very eventful year for public health. The year also brought many great research articles, blogs, and publications addressing these and other important issues.
Nurses play a huge role in hospitals, clinics, and various care facilities throughout the world. But, there are some misconceptions about what responsibilities nurses have. Nurses are saving lives and making a difference every day in health care with little recognition from the media or the world at large. Test your knowledge and see how much you really know about what goes into the job of being a nurse.
If you ask many people about nurses, they will tell you how caring and kind nurses are. The word “angel” might even appear. Nursing consistently tops the annual Gallup poll comparing the ethics and honesty of different professions.
The anniversaries of conflicts seem to be more likely to capture the public’s attention than any other significant commemorations. When I first began researching the nurses of the First World War in 2004, I was vaguely aware of an increase in media attention.
Almost on a daily basis the tabloids and media have some negative comment or observation to make about the dreadful state of the National Health Service (NHS) and the atrocious standards of care that patients receive at the hands of NHS nurses.
By Dr Victor Pace
Dementia is always in the news nowadays. Every day brings a new story: of poor care, of concerns about future numbers, of some new approach to treatment. From something that was never spoken about, it has moved centre stage, stemming from the combined realisation that many of us or our loved ones will develop it as we all live longer, and that the care people with dementia receive is grossly inadequate. This is difficult to remedy as care will become even more expensive as the number of dementia patients grows. Dementia has replaced cancer as the dreaded disease of the twenty first century.
By Nancy Guberman
Do baby-boomers see care as a normal natural extension of family obligations? A recent study in Quebec, Canada reveals that if baby-boomers in that province do consider care a family responsibility, they have a much more limited understanding of what this care entails than their predecessors and the state.
What percentage of long-term care nursing home admissions is precipitated by a hospitalization? How is this changing over time? How does the risk for long-term care placement vary by patient, disease, and health system characteristics?
The hypothesis is that most institutionalization is triggered by an acute event requiring hospitalization, which then interacts with underlying risk factors to result in long-term nursing home care. Differences in percentage of patients in a nursing home 6 months post-hospitalization, by age, gender, etc. were tested.
An excerpt from Ethics in Nursing.
An excerpt from The Oxford Companion to Black British History