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.

Objective: This study focuses on how elderly people (aged 80 and over) living with chronic heart failure perceive, interpret, and give meaning to their illness and physical condition, including the involvement of healthcare professionals, and describes these experiences in detail. On this basis, discussing self-care and its meaning from the perspective of the patients themselves, comparing it with the perspective of healthcare professionals.

Methods: A longitudinal qualitative descriptive study based on a phenomenological perspective was conducted. The study was conducted as a longitudinal qualitative descriptive study, using van Manen’s method.

Result: Four participants were interviewed approximately six times each over a period of two years. The following motifs were identified and described in detail: “Melancholy and hope between old age and the heart,” “the heart is the mastermind - a hidden presence behind the aching back,” “paying attention to one’s daily actions,” and “building a body to satisfy one’s curiosity.”

Discussion: Three perspectives were discussed focusing on the inability of fully implementing self-care indicated by medical professionals: “aging and chronic heart failure in daily life: the gap between how older adults interpret their own body and how medical professionals interpret physical functions,” “the significance of adjusting own ‘body’ using own strategies and perspective of medical professionals,” and “the meaning of self-care from the perspective of the individual themselves.”

The purpose of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of mothers’ perceptions of comfort with a breastfeeding scale. The reliability was evaluated through Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and test-retest stability, while the validity was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, correlations with external criterion scales, and associations with mother-infant bonding. The analysis included data from 779 participants. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit: X²=1838.357, df=269, p<.001, GFI=.816, AGFI=.778, CFI=.812, and RMSEA=.087. Statistically significant correlations were identified between the scale and external criterion measures, as well as between the subscales of the Japanese version of the Mother-Infant Bonding Scale. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the entire scale across the first and second surveys were from .906 to .913, showing high internal consistency. Additionally, intraclass correlation coefficients were from r=.706 to .872 (p<.001), indicating statistically significant test-retest reliability. These results support the reliability and validity of the scale for measuring the comfort as perceived by mothers in breastfeeding.

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.”