Research into the effectiveness of epilepsy specialist nursing needs to take into account a number of factors, which have not been adequately addressed in previous studies. Nursing outcome measures are different to medical ones and it is inappropriate to confuse these. Specialist nurses affect the whole culture of a service, and their impact on service quality may go beyond that of their indivi...

Nursing is evolving into new fields of health care including ambulance care, where a branch of specialist nursing is growing. Various views exist on the desired competence for the ambulance nurse and valid guidelines are lacking in Sweden. To increase knowledge of the field, professionals were asked to describe what competences an ambulance nurse should possess. The aim of this study was theref...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to describe the effectiveness of a single one-hour consultation by a clinical nurse specialist in patients with hand osteoarthritis during daily rheumatology practice in secondary care. METHODS Consecutive patients diagnosed by rheumatologists to have primary hand osteoarthritis and referred to the clinical nurse specialist were eligible for entry into...

OBJECTIVE To assess the relative cost effectiveness of clinical nurse specialist care, inpatient team care, and day patient team care. METHODS Incremental cost effectiveness analysis and cost utility analysis, alongside a prospective randomised controlled trial with two year follow up. Included were patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with increasing difficulty in performing activities of...

BACKGROUND Many young people with chronic ill health use technology for self-care activities, but little is known about the use of telehealth amongst those with spina bifida. The limited availability of specialist continence nurses in primary care settings, for this client group in the UK, exacerbates their reliance on parents or carers. OBJECTIVES 1. Exploring the way in which home-based and...

Nancy Thompson, RN, MS, AOCNS, is a clinical nurse specialist at Swedish Cancer Institute, Caroline Cogen, RN, BSN, is a staff nurse at Swedish Medical Center, Debra Forman, RN, BSN, OCN ®, is a supervisor in the Comprehensive Breast Center at Swedish Cancer Institute, and Sheryl Londerville, RN, BSN, OCN ®, is the radiation oncology charge nurse at Swedish Cancer Institute, all in Seattle, WA....