Abstract: This qualitative study focuses on van Manen's theory of the 'lived experience' in relation to two families and asks the first thesis question. What is the value of music in the care of someone who is dying? Over the course of their loved one's illness these families provided music in the patients home as part of their care. The study also captures the experiences of two nurses who work in the palliative setting, and their use of music in providing holistic care to their patients. Their experiences relate to the second question. How can nurses be assisted in introducing music into their planned care of patients? The results demonstrate the effectiveness of using taped music for someone who is dying, and the reduction in symptoms, such as anxiety, and pain. It also highlights the importance of the individual's choice, and the special moments that can be achieved for both patient and families when music is used in a caring, supportive environment. This encourages communication, especially in the sharing of emotions. This study may be the first qualitative study in New Zealand, that addresses the value of music in palliative care, therefore there is a need for continued research into this therapy as a treatment modality as part of planned care in palliative nursing.

Abstract: This qualitative research project explored the experiences of nurse educators who sought to assess aspects, which could be related to facilitation of emotional competence, in nursing students. Focus groups were conducted in three different educational institutions, offering a Bachelor of nursing degree. Each of the participants had a teaching and assessment role within the school of nursing. The contributions of the nurse educators and their interactions were audio taped, transcribed and then later, analysed using thematic and focus group analysis practices. From the analysis of the experiences of the nurse educators, four predominant themes arose which capture the areas of importance to the participants. Student nurses can develop emotional competence by critically reflecting during classroom and clinical experiences. Continuous consideration must be made within each practicing area of nursing, of the environmental and relational challenges which inhibit or facilitate nurse's ability to practice with emotional competence. Educators and practicing nurses, who work alongside students, must uphold the expectation that emotional competence is a requisite ability and provide opportunities to foster emotional growth and skills to resolve conflict within the culture of nursing. A common view shared by the educators was that the profession of nursing needs to have a clear understanding of what constitutes emotional competence. Strategies to realistically incorporate emotional competence into the educational curriculum and competency based assessment opportunities within nursing education are required. Suggestions are presented from which undergraduate nursing education can facilitate development of emotional competence with those students working toward becoming a registered nurse. Emotional competence is suggested as an essential learning outcome in the movement toward transformative nursing education and a collaborative nursing profession.

Abstract: This project was initiated by the Ministry of Health to ensure a nationally coordinated approach to mental health nursing. The purpose of the project is to provide a national strategic framework for mental health nursing that will strengthen both nursing leadership and practice within the multi-disciplinary clinical environment. The framework reviews a range of key workforce issues identified by the Ministry of Health and provides strategies to move mental health nursing forward. The framework integrates directions from government mental health strategies, policies and directions, national and international literature as well as professional nursing requirements which aim to create a sustainable mental health nursing workforce using evidence based practice. The framework considers a range of key workforce issues identified by the Ministry of Health including: nursing leadership, nurse practitioners, standards, skill mix, clinical career pathways, professional supervision, education, research and recruitment and retention.

Abstract: This project is a study of the barriers perceived by perioperative nurses to accessing and using research-based information. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 184 perioperative nurses working in five public and two private hospitals in the Auckland area. The number of completed questionnaires was 106 (57.6%). The results showed that the lack of time during work hours was ranked as the highest barrier. The results also showed that many nurses feel they do not have the skills to find and appraise research articles.

Abstract: This phenomenological study explored the experiences of five men and four women whose lives have been shaped by chronic leg ulcers. It reveals the suffering that accompanies these wounds, and challenges health professionals to move from a focus on wound management to understanding the realities of chronic illness experience

Abstract: This phenomenological study describes the lived experience of pain inflicted in the context of medically prescribed treatment, explores the meanings of such pain for patients who endured it and for nurses whose actions contributed to its generation, and presents a thematic description of the phenomenon of clinically inflicted pain. The study is informed by phenomenology, both in terms of its premises and orientation, and its research design and method.The participants in the study were 14 adult patients, admitted to hospital following burn injuries, or receiving intravenous chemotherapy upon diagnosis of cancer, and 20 nurses involved in their care. Data collection took place over a period of five months and included participant observation and compilation of field notes, and a total of 89 tape-recorded interviews (48 with patients and 41 with nurses). Through the process of hermeneutic interpretation a number of themes were identified and used to describe the phenomenon of clinically inflicted pain and the structure or the lived experience of the patients and the nurses concerned.The phenomenon of clinically inflicted pain is described in terms of four isolated themes: (1) the hurt and painfulness of inflicted pain; (2) handing one's body over to others; (3) the expectation and experience of being wounded, and (4) restraining the body and the voice. These themes point to the embodied nature of pain experience and the extent to which the person is involved not only in the enduring of pain but also in its generation. The broader lifeworld of clinically inflicted pain, often as punishment and almost always a something avoidable, and in turn being constituted by their experiences in terms of losing and seeking to regain a sense of embodied self and of personal situation, and by changed experiences of lived space and lived time.Nurses who themselves helped to generate pain, frequently overlooked the patient's lived experience and thus the essential nature of inflicted pain as painful, wounding, and demanding cooperation and composure from the patient. Instead, the pain frequently become invisible to nurses involved in its infliction, or when it could not be overlooked or ignored, it was perceived inevitable , non-harmful and even as beneficial to patients' recovery. The strategic responses that nurses adopted to pain infliction included detachment from the perceived impact and consequences of their own actions and objectification of the person in pain as a body-object on whom certain tasks had to be performed. An alternative to the strategy of detachment and objectification was involvement in a therapeutic partnership between the nurse and the patient, where shared control over pain infliction and relief helped to sustain trust in the relationship and preserve personal integrity of the patient and the nurse.The study points to dangers for both patients and nurses when clinically pain is ignored, overlooked or treated with detachment. It also points a way toward nursing practice, that is guided by thoughtfulness and sensitivity to patients' lived experience, and awareness of freedom and responsibility inherent in nursing actions, including those involved in inflicting and relieving pain. The study raises questions about nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and actions in relation to clinically inflicted pain, and highlights the need for nursing education and practice to consider the contribution of a phenomenological perspective to the understanding of human experience of pain, and the nursing role in its generation, prevention and relief

Abstract: This phenomenological study described the lived experience of patients within a surgical secondary care setting, and explored patients' perceptions of nurses' practice. The participants in the study were five adult patients who experienced a period of hospitalization within the surgical secondary care setting.This study was influenced by the work of Patricia Benner (1984) who entered the lived world of nurses' practice, through description of nurses' clinical exemplars. In this study, a qualitative research approach was used to enter the lived world of the patient within the surgical secondary setting.The research approach followed Max Van Manen's phenomenological hermeneutic method of 'Researching Lived Experience". This approach includes turning to a phenomenon of concern and interest to the researcher, investigating the experience as it is lived, reflecting on essential themes that emerge from the investigation, describing the phenomenon and bringing it to speech. The data that emerged from the participants stories of their experiences with the surgical secondary care setting, revealed four essential themes. These themes included 'feeling valued', 'human to human contact', 'two way communication', and 'feeling safe'. These themes provided insights into the participants' perceptions of nurses' practice.The participants' stories revealed a range of perceptions about nurses' practice, and the extent to which nurses in their practice valued the patient, had human to human contact, kept the patient informed and ensured patient safety. The themes revealed times when nurses' practice was perceived as dependent and powerless, in the face of, traditional views of womens' work, and the hierarchical and beurocratic constraints of the institution. At times it was also hidden from view, missed or misunderstood. Despite this, nurses' practice was seen as the central and pivotal point, from which the participants were able to make their recovery

Abstract: This paper, firstly, examines the linkages and shifts in the evolution of of praxis. The concept of praxis, also known as the practical discourse in philosophy, has been expressed in different ways in different eras. However, the linkages from one era to another and from one paradigm to another are not well explicated in the nursing literature. Blurring of the linkages occurred from the popular association of praxis within the emancipatory paradigm. Integral to the concept of praxis, since the time of Aristotle, is the notion of phronesis: a process of moral reasoning enacted to establish the 'good' of a particular situation, often referred to as practical wisdom. Secondly, the paper, promotes and affirms the importance of praxiological knowledge development in the discipline. Furthermore, increased appreciation of the concept of praxis provides an important vehicle for the advancement of nursing as a moral endeavour and the nurse as moral agent.