Journal of Holistic Nursing

Adolescents learn health behaviors in a sociocultural context of community, family, and peers. Although many adolescents engage in behaviors that protect and promote health, others engage in behaviors that threaten or compromise their health. The purpose of this review article is to provide an overview of health-risk behaviors and the morbidities and mortalities of adolescence that are related to these behaviors. Interventions that address these health behaviors and outcomes are presented along with suggestions for a holistic nursing response to this important public health concern.

Chemical dependency is known to complicate about 3.8% of pregnancies in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In this study, 54 English-speaking, hospitalized women were randomly assigned to receive either (a) daily Therapeutic Touch over a 7-day period for 20 minutes each day, (b) shared activity with a registered nurse for 20 minutes over a 7-day period, or (c) standard ward care. Anxiety was measured using Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Withdrawal symptoms were measured using a standardized Symptom Checklist. Anxiety scores were significantly less on Days 1, 2, and 3 (p < .05) for the group receiving Therapeutic Touch. Therapeutic Touch may be of value as an adjunctive measure in the treatment of chemical dependency among pregnant women.

Caring for the sick has been important throughout all times. Nursing care has been illuminated from various perspectives. The aim of this study was to illuminate nursing care as narrated by 27 retired care providers in northern Sweden. The themes of cleanliness, order, and clear conscience stood out as important in the text. The results are interpreted as pointing to purity. Purity is a complex phenomenon within the cultural context. Some literature states that in the past, physical cleanliness, moral purity, and order were closely interrelated. Nurses were expected to be religious, morally pure persons in clean and perfect uniforms, always prepared to serve and do their duty. Purity is not always readily apparent. It is often revealed through its absence or opposite. Purity and conscience are seldom addressed in contemporary nursing research. More research is needed to further reflect on purity and its significance for nursing care today.

The use of complementary therapies in the United States is growing. One complementary therapy that has received little attention in the nursing literature is Qigong. Qigong is the cornerstone of traditional Chinese medicine and consists of gentle flowing body movements, breathing, and quieting the mind. Qigong facilitates the movement of qi, the vital life energy, throughout the body, thereby enhancing health and healing disease. Preliminary research indicates that Qigong may be an effective complementary therapy for promoting health and wellness in older adults and an effective adjuvant intervention for managing chronic conditions in older adults. This article provides an overview of Qigong, reviews the English-language research literature on the therapeutic effects of Qigong, discusses the implications of Qigong as a complementary therapy for older adults, and suggests directions for further research on the use of Qigong as a therapeutic approach for older adults.

This article explores the relationship between aesthetics and the activities of daily life for nurses and for other human beings. The author relates a personal experience and describes some definitions and history surrounding our need for beauty.

The purpose of this study was to describe nursing art from the perspective of patients who had been nursed in a critical care unit. The study pursued two objectives: (a) to generate stories of occasions in which nursing was considered art in a critical care setting and (b) to describe the meanings made manifest in those stories. Using a narrative inquiry, 10 persons were interviewed twice for the purpose of answering the research question. Stories were generated in open-ended interviews, tape recorded, and analyzed by the primary researcher using Van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological framework. Five themes were found to represent critically ill persons’ experience of nursing art: (a) perpetual presence, (b) knowing the other, (c) intimacy and agony, (d) deep detail, and (e) honoring the body. The stories cultivated a human face and contextual detail for the abstract holistic concept of nursing art.