〔Purpose〕The purpose of this study is to clarify what support systems currently exist at nursing schools for teachers wishing to enter graduate school programs while continuing to work.

〔Method〕We mailed a self-administered questionnaire to persons in managerial positions at 475 nursing schools across Japan that provide a three-year program and analyzed the results of the questionnaires received from 210 nursing schools （response rate of 44.2%）.

〔Results〕With regard to workplace support systems now available for teachers who wish to study at graduate schools, 22.9% of the responding schools have a study leave system, 7.6% have a system under which teachers can work shorter hours as regular employees while studying, and 5.7% have a financial support system. Approximately 80% of the nursing schools have no plans to introduce any additional systems over and above what they already have in place. Of the responding persons in managerial positions, 80.2% regard it as necessary for teachers to study at graduate schools and support teachers by adjusting working hours, rearranging roles or duties, and creating a cooperative work environment.

〔Discussion〕The results suggest that in order to develop systems that encourage teachers at nursing schools to enter graduate school programs while continuing to work, there are four issues to be addressed: （1） creation of work environments where teachers can apply what they have learned at graduate schools, （2） provision of government financial assistance to establish support systems, （3） an increase in the number of teachers and development of flexible employment systems, and （4） revision of qualification requirements for teachers.

〔Aim〕The purpose of this research is to survey nursing teachers concerning the contents of nutritional assessment in basic nursing education and to clarify nursing teachers concerning nutritional assessment.

〔Method〕A mail-in, self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted of fundamentals of nursing teachers and adult nursing teachers who belong to four-year nursing universities and three-year nursing technical schools in Japan to evaluate the importance of five categories for nutritional assessment, such as “body composition” and “inspection data” and “items about meals” and “physical observation” and “disease accompanied by the nutrition risk”. There are a total of 89 nutritional assessment items from common texts which are used for basic nursing education.　

〔Result〕The number of effective replies was 171 （response rate 21.3%）. body composition and inspection data was the result is lower compared to other categories. There was a significant difference in importance between fundamentals of nursing teachers and adult nursing teachers on 7 of the 89 items.

〔Consideration〕The results of this study suggest that thorough education that focuses on body composition and inspection data, and between fundamentals of nursing teachers and adult nursing teachers there was not so much difference.

〔Purpose〕The study aimed to determine the aspects of psychiatric nursing practice with which students experienced difficulty, and when such perceived difficultiesarose.

〔Method〕Conferences and semi-structural interviews were held daily during or after practice with 11 undergraduate student nurses who interned in hospitals, focusing exclusively on the psychiatric service, to determine their perceived difficulties with psychiatric nursing practice.

〔Results〕The total of perceived difficulties extracted was 124, which were then classified into four genres, including environment, interaction with overall patients, interaction with the patients in charge, and drawing patient’s needs of help.

〔Discussion〕Perceived difficulties could be divided into three categories depending on when they occurred: （1） Early on in practice, they experienced difficulty in the environment or interaction with overall patients in the short term; then （2） perceived difficulties arose repetitively when drawing patient’s needs for help throughout the practice period, and （3） perceived difficulties when interacting with patients in charge emerged to varying extents throughout the practice period. Specifically, interaction with patients in charge was the most commonly cited source of perceived difficulties, which suggests that communication problems may be at the core of the latter.