My objective is to develop a nursing intervention program where parents and nurses collaborate to support the autonomy of preschool age children toward day surgery. In the first report, a picture book was prepared describing the care in which the parent reads a story about day surgery to the child along with explaining the support method which has been adjusted to the feelings speech and behavior of the child. A trial was also conducted of nursing intervention that encouraged the parent to apply the picture book on the basis of the child's character and past experience. The intervention was effectuated with the parents of 25 children aged 3~6 years-old for whom day surgery was scheduled on an outpatient basis. From the semi-structured interviews after the intervention, the parental care after the intervention was classified into four patterns: protecting, sharing, groping, and conforming. After the intervention, the parents provided their children with [parental intersubjective care] and formed [intersubjective parent-child relationships]. The parental intersubjective care was comprised of five care elements: «attitude and approach to the child», «awareness of the child's particular way of understanding», «reading the child's feelings», «according the child's demand» and «conveying the parents' requests and intentions to the child in an understandable way». For the medical experience of the child, the intersubjective parent-child relationship exerts an influence on the personality and ability, possibility of each so that parent and child may actualize their own personality and ability, possibility.

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This study aimed to clarify the bodily experiences and their meanings of patients who have had a stroke complicating unilateral limb weakness, through everyday nursing, focusing on the recovery process of the 6-week period from onset. This study took the philosophical stance of Heidegger's ontology and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as embodiment. This data was analyzed based on Benner's interpretive phenomenology. The results showed that patients had recovered through four stages: “stranger's body”, “awakening body”, “interacting body (with mind and external world)”, and “one's own body”. Of these stages, the “awakening body” started to develop within the “stranger's body” without surfacing, and which was recognized to create a bridge toward “interacting body”. It was interpreted that these stages had indicated “the release from the dissociation of mind and body” and that it meant that the body shut off from the world had obtained action and tools while unifying the past and present and had become open again to the world with intimacy on the way of making them habit.

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This article is part of my Ph D dissertation work dealing with measuring the practicality of Main Care-givers' Empowerment (MCE). The questionnaire used in this study was derived from a Japanese version containing 93 sets of questions.
The measurement conducted in China includes three steps. In the first step simplification was made to reduce the number of questions from 93 to 64 by three senior experts; In the second step, analyses of the coherency and index correlation between the theoretical components and the remaining 64 questions were carried out by 4 experts. In the analyses the average coherency rate was found to be 72.4% and the average correlation index was 85.8%. The analytical result indicated that 22 of the questions need to be further amended. In the last step, the Japanese questionnaire version was first translated into Chinese and then translated back into Japanese by two bilingual Chinese students in Japan. In this way the reliability of the translation was testified. Finally, the quantitative data, collected from the survey on 10 polled between 10 days interval, using both Chinese version and Japanese version, were tested. The correlation coefficient of the Paired Samples Test r reached 0.92, showing high levels of translation validity.
Results from the tests indicates that the Chinese version of MCE is practical and reliable.

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Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the nursing art on the child and family nursing and to develop nursing art models that describe the expertise of nurses.
Method: This study employed Flick's episodic interview method. Twelve pediatric nurses, all of whom were either graduate students or master's degree holders with five or more years of clinical experience, participated in this study. Data were collected in 2003.
Findings and Discussion: Fifteen cases were analyzed. Five nursing art models and the process of nursing actions were identified. Model-1: Identifying the cue that reveals the potential of children, and showing it for families of which the relationships with children are weak. Model-2: Identifying matters of great interest to children or families when their time is limited, moreover, letting other staff involved in the care. Model-3: Identifying the chief present concerns of families in time, and directing them based on clinical judgment when children/families look different from as usual. Model-4: Sharing thoughts with others and altering the nature of care when the usual care is not applicable in the case of children who are always unsatisfied about situations. Model-5: Confronting the gap between the feelings of children/families and the situations they are in, modeling for staff members, and sharing the delivery of care.
The process of each model is constructed with the following series of nursing actions: (1) being sensitive to situations, (2) clinical judgment, (3) nursing care, (4) confirming the direction of nursing care, (5) approaching the team members, and (6) nursing outcomes and confirming them. In this process, the nurses interpreted the situations they were attention to, explored the meaning of the behaviors of children and families, re-interpreted the situations, and decided upon the direction of nursing care. Ensuring the satisfaction and gaining the approval of children and families were set as goals to guarantee the best interests of them. Furthermore, nurses operated the systems in difficult cases in order to achieve effective outcomes.
Each nursing art model facilitates the nursing practice by examining “how” clinical judgment and nursing approach are determined.

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From a 2-year follow-up survey, this study aims to identify variables that predict quality of life using a conceptual framework (socio-demographics, clinical characteristics, severity of symptoms, ability, and self-esteem) developed by grouping variables. The subjects were 69 schizophrenic patients receiving daycare. Daily doses of antipsychotics were controlled as a confounding factor. In the survey, self-esteem was found to be the predictor in 4 domains of their quality of life. Also, proportion of physical and psychological dimensions in quality of life predicted by self-esteem increased over time, while proportion of the social relationships and environmental dimension remained stable.

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