Although sexual assault is recognized as a major problem for women's health, there are very few educational programs for nurses that have been developed and tested. The object of this study is to test an educational program for nurses involving nursing care for survivors of sexual assault.
The participants consist of thirty-three nurses. They all joined and attended a training session for seven hours, which training emphasized the importance of their attitude to survivors of sexual assault including the rape myth.
I assessed participants' attitudes toward sexual assault, general knowledge on sexual assault, and their understanding of nursing care for survivors of sexual assault as outcomes. An analysis was done during the pre-training, post-training and a month later as follow-up. To form a comparison group, thirty-three nurses who did not join were selected.
Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant change in their attitudes (F=6.848, df=1, p=.011) and improvement in understanding nursing care for survivors of sexual assault (F=28.946, df=1, p<.001) in the intervention.
In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that an educational program is effective to change nurses' attitude to sexual assault and increase their understanding of nursing care.

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The purpose of this study was to identify the correlation between functional impairments and activities in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, to determine the area of abilities affected by functional impairments. The subjects consisted of 86 patients with diagnostic criteria for COPD. Using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause Model, the functional impairments contribution rates to “self-care activity”, “domestic activity”, “outdoor activity” and “social interaction activity” were 52.5%, 74.0%, 72.4% and 45.6%, respectively, thus indicating that functional impairments have a strong effect on “domestic activity” and“outdoor activity”. On the other hand, since 59.0% of functional impairments can be explained by the degree of pulmonary obstructive disorder, the degree of shortness of breath and nutritional state, the results also demonstrated that the remaining 41.0% are related to other factors. These findings suggest that in order to maintain or improve the QOL of COPD patients it is advisable that nursing intervention begins by assessing their abilities to perform “domestic activity” and “outdoor activity”.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether self-efficacy and health locus of control were associated with lipid lowering and anthropometric change in workers. Fifty-nine men with hyperlipidemia (total cholesterol ≥ 220 mg/di, or triglyceride ≥ 150 mg/dl, or HDL cholesterol < 40 mg/dl) participated in this study. Body height, body weight, body mass index (BMI), body fatness, waist circumference, and plasma lipids were measured at annual health checkup in 1999 and twelve months after. Self-efficacy as measured by general self-efficacy scale (GSES) and health locus of control as measured by Japanese health locus of control scale (JHLCS) were assessed after annual health checkup in 1999. Subjects were divided to two groups, namely improvement group (1G) and non-improvement group (NIG), according to the changes of parameters. The point of GSES was no difference between two groups. However, the point of“super natural” of JHLCS in NIG was significantly higher than IG (p=0.045) and the point of“internal” of JHLCS in IG was higher than NIG (p=0.092) in serum total cholesterol change. The findings of this study suggest that health locus of control may be associated with lipid lowering. Therefore, medical staff, especially nurses, should understand the behavioral scientific character of subjects and instruct proper health behaviors to keep their good health in the health management.

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[in Japanese]

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Although many previous studies clarified that family caregivers of home care patients with advanced cancer have high unmet needs, few studies have developed and evaluated educational programs for the family caregivers. This article examined an applicability of an educational program for family caregivers of advanced cancer patients who receive home care services. First, the program based on the findings of previous studies and the discussions of research project members and clinical nurses, was developed to address family caregivers' needs for acquisition of necessary knowledge and skills, including a dying process to death and how to care for patients' physical and psychologic problems at home. Second, the validity and the feasibility of the program were investigated for 29 consented home care nurses. In them, 21 nurses (response rate 72%) scored 8.10±1.37 and 6.43±2.52 (range 0-10) for the validity and the feasibility of this program, respectively. The result suggests that this program is applicable for family caregivers of home care patients with advanced cancer. Additional research is inevitable to test the efficacy of the program developed in this study.

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[in Japanese]

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The purpose of this study is to examine the applicability of a psychological adjustment scale for the patients who undergo laryngectomy and to examine its validity and reliability.“Psychological Adjustment for the Patients after Laryngectomy”(PAL) was modified from Nottingham Adjustment Scale-Japan (NAS-J), which had been developed for visually impaired people and the patients with Parkinson's disease, and consisted of 32 items. A factor analysis showed eight factors, similar to the seven factors in the original NAS-J. However,“Acceptance”was divided into two factors,“Positive behavior level”and“Self-consciousness level”. Internal consistency of the eight subscales was sufficient (Cronbach's alpha 0.7 to 0.8) except“Locus of control”(Cronbach's alpha 0.6). We conclude that PAL scale can be used for the patients after laryngectomy in Japan.

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This paper will explore a model of Caring Science (Watson, J. 2004 Caring Science as Sacred Science, in print) that offers a moral and philosophical foundation of Caring for Self and Community. An expanded world-view and broad theoretical and philosophical context will be offered in which to understand the ethical and moral significance of caring for self and community. The concepts of Caritas and Communitas infuse Love into our life and work. This view will be developed through an ethical lens based upon the philosophy of Levinas (2000).“Ethics of Face” is used to convey an ethic of Other, as an obligatory ethical relationship one human to another. In“facing” our broader humanity, and ourselves we sustain and help to evolve our humanity and the deeply human dimensions of our Being and Becoming. Such a philosophical view acknowledges our human-infinity oneness and connectedness, across time, space, physicality, and culture. Within this way of understanding caring at multiple levels, Logstrup's philosophy (1997) helps us to gain an appreciation of perennial truths and wisdom traditions that remind us that we literally, morally, and metaphorically “hold another's life in our hands” (Logstrup, 1997). Our caring in a given moment in time never leaves another unaffected. In this view we explore how the nurse is not only in the environmental field of other, but becomes the energetic vibrational environmental field for Caring for Self and Other (Quinn, 1992). This Caring Science model of self and community arises from deep ethical truths related to Caritas/Love and Communitas/Connectedness, as a relational moral way of Being and Becoming more human and humane.

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