Objective: The objective of the present study is to clarify outcomes expected to be gained from sharing the experience of end-of-life care provision with a peer group of dialysis staff.

Method: Action research qualitative approach was employed, targeting on staff working in dialysis facilities that agreed on entire participation throughout the research.

Results: The following 5 phases are identified: [1] Dialysis staff realize that they do not have opportunity to express their feelings or thoughts over end-of-life care. [2] Difficulties in preparing advance directives make dialysis staff realize the importance of everyday involvement with patients. [3] Dialysis staff pour out and share emotion regarding care for dialysis patients facing nearing death. [4] End-of-life care for dialysis patients practiced jointly among clinical engineer and nurse. This change, the first endeavor at the facility, developed into a concerted effort of end-of-life care practice with the entire dialysis staff supporting each other. [5] Dialysis staff seek to continue their own forum for discussing end-of-life care for dialysis patients.

Discussion: This study offered new insight that end-of-life care is an extension of everyday care. The meetings that served as a secure opportunity for the dialysis staff allowed them to reveal and share their honest emotion. Furthermore, this change is considered representing a transformation from a task-oriented organization that operates based on doctors’ instructions to a more autonomous organization of cooperative practice with consultation with doctors. These findings provide practical suggestions toward a new team approach for end-of-life care.

Objective: To integrate qualitative studies in Japan and systematically identify common experiences of fatherhood among men regardless of the child’s status.

Method: Literature was selected from the databases of Ichushi-Web and Google Scholar, and a meta-summary was conducted to integrate the results of qualitative studies.

Results: Descriptions extracted from 40 articles were summarized in 66 synthesis results, which were classified into 10 topics. The most frequently occurring synthesis result was “carrying out the role as the mainstay of the family” (42.5%), followed by “reconsidering the value of work and adjusting or changing the working time and content of work to accommodate housework and childcare” (40.0%), and “supporting their wife (mother) and reducing her burden” (37.5%).

Conclusion: In order to support the fatherhood process, it is important to psycho-socially support men under gender role expectations of financially supporting their families, expectations of being a good parent, and in the midst of dramatic changes in relationships and lifestyles caused by the birth or increase of children. In particular, employment support for fathers is an urgent issue.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the emotional experiences of nurses caring for patients with acute spinal cord injury. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five nurses who had experience nursing spinal cord injury patients in acute care mixed wards. As a result of the data analysis, seven categories of emotional experiences were extracted as background for the specificity of the disease of spinal cord injury and the characteristics of an acute care mixed ward. These nurses were hesitant to get involved because they feared for the future of their patients who had sustained spinal cord injuries. However, the emotional experience of “witnessing the positive changes in the patient during hospitalization” increased her orientation toward the patient. This suggests that the nurses moved from empathy to a process of building a supportive relationship with the patient. It also can be speculated that in the acute care mixed ward, nurses have a coping behavior that [the sense of inadequacy due to multiple tasks must be discounted], and that they unconsciously use strategies to transform their own feelings and cognitions about negative emotions. It is necessary for nurses to know their own emotions and thought patterns.

Using Rodgers’ conceptual analysis method, this study aimed to clarify the components of the concept of the view of gender role division of labor for married couples during the transition to parenthood in Japan, and 25 references were included in the analysis. As a result, four categories of attributes, three categories of antecedents, and four categories of consequences were extracted. Thus, the view of the gender role division of labor of married couples during the transition to parenthood in Japan is defined as “The role adjustment of married couples is unclear whether it is based on gender differences or not, but it is not constant.” The definition is that “the role adjustment is not constant, but constantly changing as the couple transitions to parenthood, and as the circumstances surrounding the couple change.”