Abstract: The researchers repeat the 1996 audit of stroke care in Auckland Hospital to assess changes in stroke management since the introduction of a mobile stroke team. The audit prospectively recorded information for all patients with stroke from 1 June to 30 September 2001. They describe the work of the stroke team physician and the specialist stroke nurse and allied health staff who coordinate the multidisciplinary care of patients. Variables examined include time to arrival and medical assessment, investigations, acute management, inpatient rehabilitation, and stroke outcome. The researchers then describe recent developments in stroke care and the impact of the stroke service on patient management.

Abstract: This study used an interpretive descriptive method to gain insight into and explore key issues for rural nurses working and living in the same community. Four Rural Nurse Specialists were recruited as participants. The nurses had lived and nursed in the same rural community for a minimum of 12 months. Participants were interviewed face to face and their transcribed interviews underwent thematic analysis. The meta-theme was: the distinctive nature of rural nursing. The themes identified were: interwoven professional and personal roles; complex role of rural nurses and relationships with the community. A conceptual model was developed to capture the relationship between the meta-theme and the themes. A definition for rural nursing was developed from the findings. This research identified some points of difference in this group of rural nurses from the available rural nursing literature. It also provides a better understanding of the supports Rural Nurse Specialists need to be successful in their roles, particularly around the recruitment and retention of the rural nursing workforce.

Abstract: Undertakes a quantitative descriptive study to investigate the impact of postgraduate education on the practice of nurses working in medical and surgical wards of a District Health Board (DHB) hospital. Distributes an anonymous postal survey to 57 registered nurses and 25 senior nurses in these clinical areas and discusses the findings.

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to examine the cultural context which makes violence and abuse against women and children possible. In 2003, the public debate on prostitution law reform promised to open a space in which discourses on sexuality and violence, practices usually private or hidden, would publicly emerge. Everyday discourses relating to prostitution law reform reported in the New Zealand Herald newspaper in the year 2003 were analysed using Foucauldian and feminist post-structural methodological approaches. Foucauldian discourse analysis emphasises the ways in which power is enmeshed in discourse, enabling power relations and hegemonic practices to be made visible. The research aims were to develop a complex, comprehensive analysis of the media discourses, to examine the construction of harm in the media debate, to examine the ways in which the cultural hegemony of dominant groups was secured and contested and to consider the role of mental health nurses as agents of emancipatory political change. Mental health promotion is mainly a socio-political practice and the findings suggest that mental health nurses could reconsider their professional role, to participate politically as social activists, challenging the social order thereby reducing the human suffering which interpersonal violence and abuse carries in its wake.

Abstract: The purpose of this grounded theory study was to identify, describe and provide a conceptual explanation of the process of care offered by midwives and the effects of that care on women's experiences of childbirth on hospital. Ten couple participants and their attendant midwives provided the major source of data. The primary data collection methods used in this study were participant observation during each couple's experience of labour and birthing, antenatal, hospital and postnatal interviews with couples along with formal and informal interviews with midwives.Constant comparative analysis of data eventuated in the identification, in the context of this study denotes a process that is engaged in by both midwives and birthing women in order to establish practice, and the experience of giving birth, as being individually genuine and valid.Authenticating is multifaceted and is seen to include the intertwined and simultaneously occurring phases of 'making sense', 'reframing', 'balancing' an 'mutually engaging'.The process of authenticating is proposed as a possible conceptual framework for midwifery practice. It identifies the unique contribution the midwife can make to a couple's experience of childbirth and serves in a conceptual way to unite the technical and interpersonal expertness of the midwife. The conceptual framework of authenticating legitimizes 'being with' women in childbirth and facilitates a women-centred approach to care with consequent implications for practice, education and research

Abstract: The experiences of nurses employed on casual contracts were explored using grounded theory methodology. Data analysis showed that the experience of casual nursing is constituted by interwoven processes of discontinuity and marginality with an overall theme and processes of compromise to obtain a sense of balance by the casual nurse. Implications for permanent staff, casual nurses and organizations are developed