Routledge Library Editions: Nurse Education and Nursing Care – serie

Originally published in 1985, this book locates interpersonal skills in nursing in both social psychological and nursing contexts. It exposes nurses and nurse educators to different strategies for assessing, teaching and evaluating interpersonal skills and examines those aspects of specialised nursing care that raise particular issues in the field of interpersonal skills. The book thus combines reports of specific research studies with practical applications.Aimed at nurse educators ranging from tutors and those involved in training in specific nursing specialities to psychologists the book will be of relevance to advanced students, interested in interpersonal aspects of nursing and to practitioners.

When it was originally published in 1986, this book was one of the few to be written on social skills and mental health specifically for nurses. Yet it is nurses who are uniquely placed to improve the skills of those with mental illness since it is they who often have most contact with patients or clients. This book examines the place of social skills training in the practice of psychiatric nursing. It provides relevant background to the evidence for limited social skills in psychiatric patients and the expanding role of the nurse and considers more practical elements such as selection and assessment of patients for a programme, goal-setting, role play, feedback, and group versus individual approaches. The book also analyses relevant skills themselves, such as nonverbal communication and being assertive. The book is aimed at both trained and student psychiatric nurses.

Originally published in 1986 this book presents a review of specific international themes in nursing research, particularly methodological issues; policy and funding issues; preparation for nursing research and other perspectives such as publication and the role of professional associations in nursing research development. In the past, geographical political, cultural, educational and economic barriers all contributed to insularity in nursing, but the authors maintain that there are many common problems and the profession can benefit greatly by an exchange of ideas. The chapters were written by leading authorities in the UK, USA and Canada and the book will be of use to student and practising nurses.

Originally published in 1986, this book examines the nature of management in nursing and discusses the relevance of management education to the job of the nurse. It examines key reports and legislation of the day as they affected the health service in general and nursing in particular. It aims to assist senior nurses in their teaching of management education and to assist first-line nurses in understanding and applying the principles of management to their own practice to improve patient care. Learning objectives are given throughout the book to ensure that the nurse can check their own understanding and apply the theory to real situations.

Originally published in 1987, this book is based on material generated by the former Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) research project into development in community nursing since the 1974 reorganisation of the National Health Service in the UK. The community nursing staff involved comprised health visitors, district nurses and practice nurses. A wide range of issues which have enduring relevance today include staffing levels, education, health service priorities, government policies, changing professional roles and innovations in professional practice. The authors consider evaluative research undertaken to assess the pros and cons of developments.

This book, originally published in 1985, is intended to complement Philip Barker’s previous book Behaviour Therapy Nursing. The latter focussed more on the principles of the behavioural approach to nursing, while this book adopts a more practical approach. It is also shown that the proposed model can be extended beyond psychiatric and learning disabilities into general nursing. In the first part of the book the range of settings in which various therapeutic approaches can be used is set out, including work in the community. Emphasis is also given to the nurse’s role in social skills training and in the development of everyday living skills for the rehabilitation of the mentally ill and disabled. The second part of the book presents case studies, each describing how the nurse assesses the patient and plans and implements the treatment. The emphasis is on practical illustration of the behavioural approach to different clinical problems in different patient populations in various treatment settings. At the end of each study there is discussion of possible alternative treatment strategies and the general applicability of the case.

The behavioural approach in nursing practice is the main concern of this book, originally published in 1982. Although the discussion concentrates on the fields of psychiatry and learning disabilities, it is also relevant to other areas of nursing such as the care of the elderly or of sick children. The book traces the development of behaviour therapy from its beginnings in the experimental laboratory work of Pavlov, Skinner and Watson to the more recent influences of social learning theory. A survey is made of the major stages in the therapy process, and this is followed by a detailed description of possible types of treatment. In conclusion some of the more controversial issues raised in this book are reconsidered, along with their implications.

Originally published in 1983, this book provides a revealing and comprehensive perspective on nurse education in the 20th Century. The opening chapters look at the students themselves: the sort of people who come into nursing and it examines why the drop-out rate is high and how reality differs from expectations. The following section examines teaching on the wards and the final part is concerned with the education and support of those involved in nurse teaching. It includes a discussion of the nature of teaching and of ways of studying the teaching process, as well as analysis of developments in the provision of library and information services to nurse educators, nurse administrators and clinical nursing staff.

Originally published in 1987 this book presents a number of research-based studies in nursing education, concentrating particularly on the nursing curriculum and its planning, content implementation and evaluation. Some of the chapters report on specific research projects whilst others are more general reviews. The book is written by leading researchers in nurse education in the UK and will be of interest to nurse tutors and teachers and researchers.

The acquisition of professional interpersonal skills remains one of the key skills in the practice of nursing. Originally published in 1983 and as a second edition in 1994, this established book maintains that social skills can be learnt, and that patient care can improve by anticipating and preventing problems. The book shows how nurses can develop personally and professionally by actively learning social skills in preference to their haphazard acquisition in practice. Drawing on a wide body of writing, research and nursing theory each chapter concludes with reflective activities and self-evaluation tasks and is preceded by learning objectives.

Nurses now, just as when this book was originally published in 1988, are underpaid and overworked and thousands are leaving the profession every year. But why do many more highly intelligent and well-educated men and women stick to such a difficult and ill-paid job? Donald Gould has tried to discover the answer to this question by interviewing all kinds of nurses. For most the many frustrations and hardships of their jobs are more than out weighted by the immense satisfactions of the daily round. As the stories told in Nurses reveal, the profession provides an opportunity for the exercise of every kind of talent, from the highly scientific skills demanded by intensive care, to ‘making do’ in remote Africa, from easing the approach to death to managing a workforce of thousands.

The nursing process, the curriculum process and theoretical nursing models are essential areas of concern for those nurses who are involved with the design, planning and implementation of nurse educational programmes. Originally published in 1984, this book reviews and brings together appropriate elements of these three areas. A critical analysis of nursing theory, and relationship of theory to practice, and an overview of nursing models is presented along with an examination of general curriculum theory and practice and nursing applications.

Originally published in 1987, this book expands and develops some of the ideas presented in the author’s earlier volume Nurse Education and the Curriculum: A Curricular Model. This book expands that theoretical discussion and presents an analytical explanation of curriculum design, development and evaluation as applied to nursing. It also addresses the practical difficulties of building and implementing an effective curriculum for nursing education and discusses ways and means by which the facilitation of planning strategies can be developed. The book shows how the curriculum process can be used as a conceptual framework for dealing with intentions and purpose, content, methods and evaluation.

Originally published in 1974, the main aim of this book is to help nurses to a deeper understanding of those whom they are learning to serve. The author explains the relevance of sociology to contemporary nursing, showing that patients cannot be fully understood or properly treated without a knowledge of the social background of their complaints, and without knowing something about the families upon whom they depend and who are dependent upon them. A sociological perspective can also help nurses in regard to their position: nurses play a wide variety of roles in a wide range of situations. A chapter is devoted to relationships within hospitals, particularly with doctors. The book also discusses developments in community care and in relation to general practice.

Originally published in 1983 this book examines the beginnings of the nursing profession in its present form through one generation of general hospital nurses, Voluntary and Poor Law based, who were recruited and trained between 1881 and 1914. As such, they were the first to go through a co-ordinated and standardised training programme. This study is concerned with the way in which women chose and were chosen to be general nurses and the consequences that their decisions subsequently had for the profession. Unlike previous books on nursing history, this study addresses itself to the history of nursing techniques, to the changing attitudes towards nurses and patients and to the popular contemporary image of nurses over the years.

In recent years there has been an immense growth in interest in the history of nursing, both from nurses themselves, who are keen to discover the roots of their practice and profession, and on the part of historians and sociologists of health care to nursing history, women’s history and the development of professional groups. Originally published in 1987 this book presents some of the most interesting work in this field from authors in Britain, the USA and Australia and is a major addition to this literature.

Primary nursing is a system of care which reinstated the skilled professional nurse at the forefront of practical nursing care. Originally published in 1988, this book presents an argument, based on contemporary literature and on the practice in the former Burford and Oxford nursing development units, to support the introduction of primary nursing and nursing beds in general hospitals. It focuses on the philosophy of individualised patient care delivered by a professional nursing service and based on a close, therapeutic relationship between nurse and patient. Innovations included the abandoning of stereotyped nurse uniforms, the sharing of mealtimes by patients and nurses, and the use of therapeutic touch and massage. Having been implemented and evaluated, the units enjoyed an international reputation.

When this book was originally published in 1980, the speciality of occupational health nursing was only just beginning to be recognised by the nursing profession and the public although nurses had been doing the job for over one hundred years. One of the reasons for this may well have been the lack of nursing literature dealing with the subject. This book, written by tutors of Occupational Health Nursing Certificate Courses and practitioners in industry considers topics and concepts that give the specialism its unique character.

Originally published in 1983 this book gives a basic grounding in community medicine and epidemiology for district, community psychiatric and other nurses and health visitors. It provides the background necessary to an understanding of how diseases occur and spread in populations, and to an appreciation of the possible planning and prevention that such health professionals can undertake. Although the book focuses on medicine and epidemiology, it is written specifically for nurses and health visitors, and throughout a conscious effort is made to relate the discussion to practical work. The book selects as illustrative case studies the topics of coronary heart disease, renal disease, accidents and psychiatric conditions.

Originally published in 1954 and as a second edition in 1957, this book provides a survey of the main psychological principles necessary to nurses in their work. As well as being a textbook for nurses in training, it was written in such a way as to be of value to qualified nurses as well. The author drew widely on her experience as psychologist in London Teaching Hospitals including Guys, Great Ormond Street and University College Hospital, and as a lecturer to nurses in training. She illustrates her theme with many practical examples drawn from hospital experience. This is a careful and scientific study of psychology applied to nursing which is readable and avoids the use of unnecessary technical terms.