Abstract: This article reports the results of a research study undertaken to examine how nurses manage their professional and personal selves while working in small rural communities. The participants were a small group of rural nurses on the West Coast. The rationale for the study was the long-term sustainability and viability of the service to this remote area. The research showed that the rural nurse specialists' role is a complex and challenging one, performed within the communities in which nurses live.

Abstract: The authors discuss the usefulness of a generic tool to measure job stress in New Zealand workplaces, and report on a study using one such generic tool. The study involved sending questionnaires to all staff (193) who had worked at a regional women's health service for a minimum of six months. The mailed package contained the Job Stress Survey (JSS), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), demographic questions (including cultural safety), shift work questions, and a blank page for “qualitative comment”. Over 12,000 pieces of data were collected from the study but this article focuses only on the results of the JSS. The JSS can be used to determine a “job stress index” and can also be used to measure “job pressure” and “lack of organisational support”. For this study, job stress index scores were calculated and organised by occupational groupings. Midwives, nurses and doctors all cited inadequate or poor quality equipment, excessive paperwork, insufficient personal time, and frequent interruptions, as their top stressors. Three of these four stressors fall within the job pressure index. The results of the survey prompted organisational changes, including: extensive discussions; equipment being updated; management being made aware of the depth of concern felt by staff; the creation of a place for staff to have personal time; and coping intervention strategies were initiated. The authors suggest that no generic measure of job stress can fully evaluate stressors unique to a particular work setting. They support additional items being constructed and administered to assess stressors that are idiosyncratic to a particular occupational group.

Abstract: The author presents her experience investigating the incidence of post-anaesthetic shaking in the recovery room ward, and develops a clinical tool for its treatment. Several theories about post-anaesthetic shaking are examined. The cases of 1296 patients who had major regional or general anaesthetics over four consecutive months in the previous year are studied. The incidence of post-anaesthetic shaking and correlating core body temperature readings with post-anaesthetic shaking are examined. A protocol for reducing/treating post-anaesthetic shaking is developed on the basis of the findings of the study.

Abstract: This article overviews the use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment in New Zealand primarily for chronic wounds, those who have had radiation therapy and those who are having or who have had head and neck surgery. In New Zealand there are just three hyperbaric oxygen treatment units: The Devonport Naval Base and The Oxygen Therapy Clinic, both in Auckland; and the Hyperbaric Medicine Unit in Christchurch; thus access to this treatment is limited.

Abstract: Draws on the author's doctoral thesis to examine the prejudices, paradoxes and possibilities inherent in nursing a person from a culture other than one's own.