Abstract: The aim of this paper is to report on an exploratory, qualitative study exploring what people living with terminal illness considered were the areas of priority in their lives. Ten people living with terminal cancer were interviewed. Analysis of the interviews incorporated principles of narrative analysis and grounded theory. Over 30 categories were identified and collated into five inter-related themes (personal/intrinsic factors, external/extrinsic factors, future issues, perceptions of normality and taking charge) encompassing the issues of importance to all participants. Each theme focused on 'life and living' in relation to life as it was or would be without illness. Practical issues of daily living and the opportunity to address philosophical issues around the meaning of life emerged as important areas. The central theme, 'taking charge', concerned with people's levels of life engagement, was integrally connected to all other themes. The findings suggest that the way in which health professionals manage patients' involvement in matters such as symptom relief can impact on existential areas of concern. The findings challenge some aspects of traditional 'expert-defined' outcome measures. As this was an exploratory study, further work is needed to test and develop the model presented.

Abstract: This article outlines a model for the nursing role in the chronic health care context of renal replacement therapy. Materials from several streams of literature are used to conceptualise the potential for nursing work in the renal setting as negotiated care. In order to present the role of the renal nurse in this way it is contextualised by viewing the renal setting as a specialised social context constituted by a dominant professional discourse and a contrasting client discourse. While performing specific therapeutic activities in accord with the dominant discourse, renal nurses can develop a relationship with the person living on dialysis, based on responsiveness to their subjective experience reflecting the renal client discourse. In contrast to the language of noncompliance prevalent in the renal setting, nurses can, through their relationship with renal clients, facilitate their attempts to negotiate the requirements of the therapeutic regime into their own personal life situation. Nurses can mediate between the dominant and client discourses for the person living on dialysis. Care describes the quality that nurses actively seek to create in their relationships with clients, through negotiation, in order to support them to live as fully as possible while using renal replacement therapy. The author concludes that within chronic health care contexts, shaped by the acute curative paradigm of biomedicine, the model of nursing work as negotiated care has the potential to humanise contemporary medical technologies by responding to clients' experiences of illness and therapy.

Abstract: The article presents a theoretical model of social consciousness developed from nurses' life histories. A 3-position dialectical framework (acquired, awakened, and expanded social consciousness) makes visible the way people respond to social injustice in their lives and in the lives of others. The positions coexist, are not hierarchical, and are contextually situated. A person's location influences her or his availability for social action. Nurses who could most contribute to challenging social injustices that underpin health disparities are relegated to the margins of mainstream nursing by internal processes of discrimination. The author suggests that more inclusive definitions of “a nurse” would open up possibilities for social change.

Abstract: This qualitative study explores the perceptions of mental health nurses regarding assessment in an acute adult inpatient setting in Central Auckland. Fourteen mental health nurses took part in semi-structured interviews answering five open-ended questions. The analysis of data involved a general inductive approach, with key themes drawn out and grouped into four categories (roles, attitudes, skills and knowledge) in order to explore the meaning of information gathered. The outcome of the study acknowledged the importance of contextual factors such as the physical environment and bureaucratic systems, as well as values and beliefs present within the unit. The participants expressed concern that their input to assessment processes was limited, despite belief that 24-hour care and the nature of mental health nursing generally suggested that a crucial role should exist for nurses. In order for nurses to be established as central in the assessment process on the unit the study concludes that a nursing theoretical framework appropriate for this acute inpatient setting needs to be developed.

Abstract: This article examines the therapeutic relationship, a concept held by many to be fundamental to the identity of mental health nurses. While the therapeutic relationship was given formal expression in nursing theory in the middle of the last century, its origins can be traced to attendants' interpersonal practices in the asylum era. The dominance of medical understandings of mental distress, and the working-class status of asylum attendants, prevented the development of an account of mental health nursing based on attendants' relationships with asylum inmates. It was left to Peplau and other nursing theorists to describe mental health nursing as a therapeutic relationship in the 1940s and later. Some distinctive features of colonial life in New Zealand suggest that the ideal of the attendant as the embodiment of bourgeoisie values seems particularly unlikely to have been realised in the New Zealand context. However, New Zealand literature from the 20th century shows that the therapeutic relationship, as part of a general development of a therapeutic discourse, came to assume a central place in conceptualisations of mental health nursing. While the therapeutic relationship is not by itself a sufficient basis for professional continuity, it continues to play a fundamental role in mental health nurses' professional identity. The way in which the therapeutic relationship is articulated in the future will determine the meaning of the therapeutic relationship for future generations of mental health nurses.

Abstract: The author contends that responses to cultural diversity in nursing need to consider the theory and practice developments of the profession, whilst also responding to broader social and historical process that prevent marginalised groups from utilising universal health services. A combination of approaches is suggested in this paper to meet these two imperatives. Cultural safety is one indigenous New Zealand nursing approach derived in response to inequalities for Maori, whereas cultural competence is an imported paradigm derived from a multicultural context. Furthermore, research and dialogue are required to examine points of complementarity and tension. This paper offers a beginning for this process.

Abstract: Explores the challenges encountered by nurse educators who seek to assess aspects related to emotional competence in nursing students. This emotional competence includes nurses managing their own emotional life along with the skill to relate effectively to the multiple colleagues and agencies that nurses work alongside. The research was designed to explore the views of nurse educators about the challenges they encounter when seeking to assess a student's development of emotional competence during the three year bachelor of nursing degree. Focus groups were used to obtain from educators evidence of feeling and opinion as to how theory and practice environments influence student nurses' development of emotional competence. The process of thematic analysis was utilised and three key themes arose as areas of importance to the participants. These were personal and social competence collectively comprises emotional competence in nursing; emotional competence is a key component of fitness to practise; and transforming caring into practice. The findings of the study indicate a need for definition of what emotional competence is in nursing. It is argued that educators and practicing nurses, who work alongside students, must uphold the expectation that emotional competence is a requisite ability and should themselves be able to role model emotionally competent communication.

Abstract: An overview of the model of nursing practice and nurse roles derived through a programme of nursing research in the context of the policy and strategies directing developments in the New Zealand health system. The emphsis was on the health service configuration model presented diagrammatically to show the position of a new role of family nurse with a distinct form of practice forming the hub.