Western Journal of Nursing Research

The hospitalization experiences of members of a Mi’kmaq, First Nation Community in New Brunswick, Canada, were examined to understand cultural sensitivity from their perspectives. Interpretive interactionism, a qualitative methodology, guided the study. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 participants from the Big Cove First Nation Community. Recurring themes in their narratives revolved around understanding. Participants often felt misunderstood by caregivers in a way that made them feel lessened as persons. They also had difficulty understanding the hospital milieu and felt that they were strangers in it. Each, however, had experienced valued encounters with at least one caregiver when they felt understood. They felt these caregivers had been kind to them, accepted the Mi’kmaq custom of family visiting, and treated them as social equals. Compassion and a nondiscriminatory attitude were more important than cultural knowledge in this context in which the caregivers’culture rather than the care recipients’ culture predominated.

This study explored spirituality as a lived experience through in-depth, face-to-face interviews of 15 Taiwanese women with breast cancer. A Phenomenological research method was employed to guide the study. Four main themes and 12 subthemes, conceptualized under a meta-theme of hsin, emerged as characteristic of the current “lifeworlds” of the study participants. Interpretation of the findings revealed that spirituality is a journey and a unidirectional evolving process that the participants experienced at different levels of wholeness and integration. Spirituality in Taiwan not only must be seen as metaphysics but also should be approached in the cultural context of patients. Nurses should attend to each patient as a unique person, focus on “here-and-now” encounters, and help their patients transform and evolve to a higher plane of wholeness and integration. Nurses should, as well, nurture and support their own spirituality to be available healing resources for others.

This article reports the relationships between resilience, demographic characteristics, immigration demands, and depression in a sample of 450 adult Russian immigrants to Israel. Contrary to theories of how resilience is related to psychological outcomes, no support was found for resilience modifying or mediating the relationship between the demands of immigration and depression. Resilience did, however, increase the risk of not being depressed by about two-fold (p < .0001).

This study assessed the cultural verification of the Profile of Mood States (POMS) for Korean elderly and examined their mood states. After assessment of face validity by a panel of Korean experts, 319 Korean elders, older than 60 years, were recruited from personal contact or senior centers in five Korean cities and completed the questionnaire. Through item analysis, face validity, and factor analysis, the 65-item original POMS was revised and reduced to a three-factor, 34-item instrument specific to Korean elders. Results of descriptive analysis showed that Korean older people perceived relatively good mood states. Lower mood states were significantly correlated with female gender, advanced age, unemployment, less education, lower economic status, being widowed or divorced, and with their children as the main source of income. In conclusion, the revised POMS for Korean elders has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of mood states.

The meanings of menopause among a vulnerable group of women—low-income Korean immigrant women—were explored using a cross-sectional descriptive research design focusing on how these meanings were constructed with their daily life experiences. Twenty-one peri- or post-menopausal women were recruited using convenience sampling methods; 2-hour in-depth interviews were conducted with audiotaping and field notes, and the data were analyzed using the-matic analysis, including line-by-line coding and categorization. Several themes related to the meanings of menopause emerged. The shock of menarche, various definitions of menopause, the negative view on middle age as falling down the hill, and other transitions the women were experiencing shaped the nature of their responses to menopause. The women were ambivalent about their menopausal transition, welcoming and fearing it. The authors propose that nurses initiate a dialogue about menopause with diverse populations to support the normalization of their menopausal transition and empower them to use culturally appropriate resources.

Scheduling and tracking of participants for research projects is an important yet time consuming process. Our research team has developed an approach that is innovative and timesaving for scheduling appointments. We use Web conferencing, which can be done on site or from remote locations by all members of our staff. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of Web conferencing, explain the process of scheduling appointments on Web conferencing, and discuss the advantages of Web conferencing for nursing research projects.