This study is based on a fact-finding survey of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in nurses approximately 8–9 months after the Kumamoto Earthquake, with nurses working in hospitals in the disaster-stricken areas of the Kumamoto Earthquake of 2016 as subjects. There were 322 analysis subjects and 46 (14.3%) of those with a high PTSD risk. There was an association between those with a high PTSD risk to those being in a higher age group or being a nursing middle manager in a ward. In addition, there was also an association between those with a high PTSD risk to those who were on duty during the main shock and those having a partially damaged home due to the quake. It was shown that there is a need to support nurses who have experienced these events. Furthermore, those who had undergone disaster nursing training tended to suffer less from PTSD. It is thought that the disaster nursing training course contributed to promoting visualization to cope with disasters and is an effective countermeasure for PTSD in the event of a disaster.

The purpose of this study is to clarify that how ward nurses are annoyed with work associated back pain in a hospital setting and low back pain exercise could be one of the resolutions coping with that problem. This study showed that although 40% of ward nurses complain of back pain caused by work related heavy burden on the back, they are too busy to cope with it.

The follow-up period is roughly divided into four terms, in which the nurses who have practiced that exercise feel it’s effectiveness gradually.

Firstly, they have been less positive about practicing the exercise. In the 2nd term, they started to practice the exercise and prepare for it. In the 3rd term, due to our intervention to make them participate in the exercise, relationship with nurses have been our binding up. In the 4th term, those who realized the effectiveness of the exercise have gradually changed coworker’s attitude. Some of them actively participate in the exercise practice and appreciate the back pain strategy.

【Purpose】 The purpose of this research was to describe the student’s “Aha！” moment from the student’s view point that occurred during the pediatric clinical nursing practice.

【Methods】 Participants were those who had experienced the “Aha!” moment during the pediatric clinical nursing practice at a nursing college and still belong to the college. An interview was conducted with three participants based on the narrative approach.

【Results】 Student’s experience by their narrative were as follows: (1) Experience of deep understanding when she matched the family in front of me with the family in chronologically; (2) Experience of “Oh, really it was”when she noticed building relationship with a child and myself; (3) Experience of realizing that she could hear child’s voice.

【Discussions】 Student’s experiences were “Aha!” moment that accompanied the insight when their concerns, anxiety, and difficulties they had during pediatric clinical nursing practice turned to deep learning.

Aim: To elucidate the characteristics of elderly males’ volunteer in the Okhotsk region of Hokkaido.

Method: An anonymous, self-administered questionnaire investigating differences in attributes, volunteer motivation scale, helping effects scale and volunteering frequency was distributed to 629 elderly males currently registered as volunteers.

Results: Response rate of 33.4%, with 174 responses being subject to analysis. 81.6% partook volunteer activities for the elderly. A weak positive correlation between these activities and age was found (ρ=0.212, p<0.01), and findings indicate that the old-old participated in volunteering more frequently than young-old individuals（U=2358.5, p<0.01）． Moreover, individuals over 75 years of age scored significantly higher on the helping scale total score (p=0.003).

Discussion: Compared to young-old individuals, old-old individuals were more likely to participate in volunteer activities for the elderly. This suggests that participation in the activities was possible regardless of age. Further, it is believed that old-old individuals obtained helping effects, such as a sense of reward and fulfillment from participating in volunteer activities.

Objective: To clearly identify how women undergoing fertility treatment stay in the treatment place.

Method: Qualitative and descriptive research design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the study participants: six women with either current or past experience of undergoing fertility treatment at clinics. From the interview data obtained, I created transcriptions, performed inductive analysis, and extracted core categories, categories, and sub-categories.

Results: The significance ascribed to women’s experiences in these fertility treatment places was organized into two core categories: 1. The threshold is gradually lower; the body is caught and cannot be separated. 2. Waiting while worrying about the surroundings.

Conclusion: Women undergoing fertility treatment experienced high thresholds at the beginning of the treatment, but it gradually became lower, and the body of women caught up in the treatment place. Furthermore, women had distinguished the experience of staying while caring for the surroundings, especially in waiting rooms.

This study focused on the resilience of wives looking after their elderly husbands affected by stroke, who were living at home as a couple with no other family members. The research used qualitative descriptive methods. Data collection involved participant observation and interviews. Specifically, the researcher spent time with the care provider, visiting their home several times. The participants were wives from their late 60s to early 80s who had been looking after their stroke-affected husbands for 3–5 years. The study found that these wife’s resilience: confronting their despair at the possibility of losing their husband; returning to their normal pace of life; feeling unable to care for him alone due to his injuries; wanting the husband when the he was fine; getting absorbed in his care; feeling strongly responsible for his care; rousing their own spirits in the face of limitations; resignation at the solo battle of caregiving; and keeping calm by his demands.

For these wife’s, resilience was a process of coordinating their personal strength to endure hardship in their relationships with others, while simultaneously regaining their personal authenticity. For this reason, resilience also accompanied risks, as these wife attempted to continue caregiving despite the limitations.

In this study we developed and implemented a workshop program for nurses providing end-of-life care in special nursing care homes, to improve the understanding of long-term, continuing processes from the admission till death. This study aimed to explore and identify the reaction of nurses to the matters included in the workshop, and also the changes in nursing practice after the workshop. For the reaction of nurses to the workshop, nurses were asked about understandability, usefulness, and practicability of the matters introduced in the workshop. After the workshop period, we conducted semi-structured interviews and analyzed the data qualitatively. Eighteen out of 19 nurses regarded ‘time division of each stage’ and ‘physical and mental characteristics of the elderly in each stage’ as useful and practicable knowledge. Further, after the workshop, we extracted the following three categories as central categories in the practice reported by nine nurses who had experience of end-of-life care: 《awareness as the process of end-of-life care》, 《development of nursing based on logical thinking》, and 《evaluation of how nursing in special nursing care homes is worthwhile》. The findings suggested that the matters included in the training are valid as conceptual knowledge in end-of-life care.

This research aimed at conducting a simulation of medical fee when US-style nurse practitioners (NPs) and graduates of medical procedure-specific training were introduced in the Japanese community medicine; it also aimed at revealing the problems of the Japanese community medicine and the expected improvement of patient care by introducing NPs by interviewing visiting nurses. A simulation of medical consultation fees using data of the visiting nursing records and examination records of 69 nurses who made use of the X Home Nursing Station associated with a hospital revealed that on average, using NPs reduced the long-term care insurance and the medical insurance by 29% and 21%, respectively, and using graduates of medical procedure-specific training reduced the long-term care insurance and the medical insurance by 2% and 5%, respectively. Interviews conducted with three visiting nurses affiliated with the facility revealed that they encountered problems such as being able to respond only within the scope of doctors’ instructions and that they hoped sophisticated practitioners such as NPs could act as coordinators of home medicine in the future.

In this study, we report a disaster nursing training based on the ARCS model in an area without a disaster base hospital. The design of the program was based on the ARCS model of instructional design. In the evaluation of the training using the questionnaire, most participants answered that “information that could be practically used in the event of a disaster was obtained” and that “the content was such that I wanted to communicate it to my workplace.” was “applicable” and received high evaluation. Moreover, the training program accorded the participants the opportunity to reflect on the problems prevailing in their own facilities and realize the need to establish collaborative relationships with neighboring facilities. The study also identified that the participants varied individually in terms of their readiness for disaster training. The learning needs of the participants were also discrete with regard to aspects such as triage practices and the ways they could collaborate with their local communities. Training that accounts the characteristics and needs of the local community and in-service education support for disaster nursing should be developed.