A Health Observances Calendar is easily created using a word-processing program (like Microsoft Word) and creating an easy table with the month and the Sundays (to use in developing short articles for  church bulletins).  See attached church bulletin health notes 2019 form for a template that can be modified for future years.  Then go to the National Health Observances  hosted by healthfinder.gov at https://healthfinder.gov/NHO/nhoyear.aspx?year=2019 and considering your congregation, select the optimal topics for "Health Notes" for each week.  When writing notes to be placed in newsletters or bulletins, add the links or resources used at the bottom of the page.  For longer articles, such as your newsletter, use the APA citation format (see APA Style from the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual (2010) or visit their website at https://apastyle.apa.org/learn/index or use the Purdue University College of Liberal Arts Online Writing Lab (OWL) on APA format at https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html.  Health Notes can then be developed in advance, shared, or modified to meet your needs! Submitted by: Yvette Dulohery, EdS, MSN, APRN, Faith Community Nurse

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. Washington, DC: Author.

Karen Hernes, MSN, RN, CNE presented information at our recent open FCNI General Membership meeting on the importance of health literacy for our practice.   (A link to the ZOOM recording will be available on the Education page, however continuing education credits are  unable to be awarded for the link only).  One of the recommendations is to check the reading level of the materials we use or develop for our congregations.  Karen recommended the use of a readability tool, such as the Flesch-Kincaid measure.  I discovered I did not have Microsoft Word set up to obtain the optional readability level for my documents-so please see her information and check to determine if you are using this feature!  I plan on adding this information in a tip sheet on the Members Only site too.

Another valuable pearl from the presentation was Ask Me 3, which is a National Patient Safety Foundation program for patients and families to ask three specific questions to promote understanding.  These questions are:
1.  What is my main problem?
2.  What do I need to do?
3.  Why is it important for me to do this?

One of the participants acknowledged the importance of...Tell Me 3...where we would take the initiative to make certain we informed our congregants:
1.  What your main problem is.
2.  What they need to do.
3.  Why it is important for them to do these things.

Then ask for a "teach-back"...by specifically asking the individual/family the "Ask Me 3" to confirm we have imparted the important information intended!  

For more information on Ask Me 3, please see: the Institute for Healthcare Improvement at: ​http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/Ask-Me-3-Good-Questions-for-Your-Good-Health.aspx 

 Dr. D. Ziebarth, PhD, MSN-Ed, RN-BC
Nursing Department Chair
Herzing University
Brookfield and Kenosha Campuses
555 So. Executive Dr. Brookfield, WI. 53005
dziebarth@herzing.edu
Office: 262-649-1710 Ext. 61647
Fax: 414-212-3117
Cell: 414-315-5456
      I recently attended the American Public Health Association Conference in Atlanta. This is a major international conference with thousands in attendance. I submitted a poster that was accepted to be presented along with others…literally hundreds of other posters. The research poster showcases the analysis of faith community nurses (FCN) documentation. The purpose of the study is to describe transitional care as implemented by faith community nurses (FCNs) using a standardized nursing language, Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC). A NIC Class contains a standardized group of intervention representing various nursing activities. Two years’ worth of data was collected and translated into NIC.
     This work dwarfs the mega international studies that are here. But the study is important to the specialty of Faith Community Nursing and stands on its own merits. The description of transitional care as implemented by FCNs provide additional insight into what interventions are most implemented during transitional care. You cannot not test it (transitional care as provided by FCN) until you can describe and name it.
      The study’s results shows that the most frequent Classes of NIC performed by FCNs while caring for transitional patients are Coping Assistance, Communication Enhancement, Patient Education, Information Management, Health System Mediation, Physical Comfort Promotion, Lifespan Care, Behavioral Therapy, Activity and Exercise Management, Cognitive Therapy, Tissue Perfusion Management, Childrearing Care, Self-Care Facilitation, Drug Management, Nutrition Support, and Community Health Promotion. The three Classes containing the most frequently reported interventions were Coping Assistance, Communication Enhancement, and Patient Education.
     When compared to what is considered to be priority or best practice transitional care interventions, FCNs provided the same interventions. In addition FCNs provided emotional and spiritual support interventions. This is important for several reasons:
·         Patients may seek out healthcare providers that include emotional and spiritual           support interventions.
·         Supporting the patient’s spiritual needs may help them to cope better with their             illnesses, changes, and losses in life.
·         Providing emotional and spiritual support interventions may reduce    
          readmission.
·         Transitional care interventions rendered by a FCN may elicit an adaptive
          response of attaining or maintaining wholistic health. Wholistic health is defined
​          as “…the human experience of optimal harmony, balance and function of the
          interconnected and interdependent unity of the spiritual, physical, mental, and
          social dimensions” (Ziebarth, 2016, p. 1818).
​
      In summary, FCNs providing transitional care may help patients cope better with illnesses, reduce readmission, and maintain or improve wholistic health. The poster may not draw the attention of national public health leaders, but in the world of Faith Community Nursing, this work is one small step towards describing our unique practice.
​
Reference:
Ziebarth, D. J. (2016). Wholistic health care: Evolutionary conceptual analysis.
​      Journal  of Religion and Health, 55(5), 1800-1823. DOI 10.1007/s10943-016-0199-6
 

​On a recent conference call of the FCNE Research Committee, someone mentioned that although most of us had academic connections that gave us access to academic libraries and all sorts of journals, that probably the vast majority of Faith Community Nurses did not have such access.
That prompted me to try a few searches for research articles outside my normal access to our university library. I was able to discover article abstracts, but many required that I pay a fee (between $5-10), and it supported the difficulty that the average Faith Community Nurse may have in getting full access to research articles. 

Journals associated with a membership organization can provide direct access to journals. For example, Faith Community Nursing International provides the Journal of Faith Community Nursing as a benefit of membership.  As another example, the American Public Health Association membership grants full access to the American Journal of Public Health and The Nation’s Health, their newsletter. Although not limited to Faith Community topics, many of the articles in these issues support health promotion programming.

Open Access Journals are another option for finding research articles.  Unlike traditional journals that charge subscriptions for access to articles, Open Access journals charge authors for the review of their papers.  Most do use a peer review model, that is, a person knowledgeable in the field reviews the paper (for free, in my experience) and offers comments on the value of the article.  Just as with traditional journals, articles are reviewed for overall quality, the quality of the research presented using standard assessments, and the judgment of whether the article provides new knowledge on the topic. Articles can be accepted, suggested for revisions, or rejected. Once accepted, the article is published openly on the internet with access to anyone.  These journals have varying quality, so the reader must read critically.  Articles associated with Digital Commons, including Journal of Faith Community Nursing have the advantage of being Open Access but also of being associate with recognized university repositories.
Science Direct has a list of open access journals sponsored by Elsevier, a major publisher. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions is one.  A recent issue has a paper on Patients’ and caregivers’ views on conversations and shared decision making in diagnostic testing for Alzheimer’s disease: The ABIDE project (Kunneman et al., 2017).  A funded interview project, it interviewed patients and families about their decision making about testing and found that both groups were driven by a need for information. Most anticipated the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and were looking for an explanation of symptoms. Caregivers, in particular, sought more information about stages and future expectations. They also sought a longer time to discuss implications with a provider and the paper suggested this to be a good role for nursing. What better nursing preparation for this difficult set of conversations than a faith community nurse who is prepared to discuss meaning and spirituality? This las comment is extrapolated beyond the paper itself!

The Journal of Primary Care and Community Health is an open access journal published by Sage.  A recent issue has an article on Bone Health with resources to support screening, use of vitamin D and advice on medication (Lawrence, Grotzke, Rosenblum, Nelson, La Fleur, Miller, Ma, & Cannon, 2017).  Another article addresses use of health centers by persons with chronic diseases. This paper might be of interest to a community with Medicaid eligible people.
Another open access option is the Public Library of Science (PLOS).  It has a focus on science, technology and medicine, but that is defined broadly.  One recently posted article focused on increasing weight between pregnancies as a risk factor for gestational diabetes (Sorbye, Skhaerven, Klunsoyer & Morken, 2017).

Resources in spirituality can also be found outside a university library system.  Looking for topics on Google will uncover useful articles such as one on the role of spirituality in health care, particularly with the dying (Pulchaski, 2001).  Although taken from a perspective of a physician, the truths are there for nurses as well.  

The Research Committee for Faith Community Nurses International supports all faith community nurses in accessing resources to enrich their practice.  We will have a blog associated with this article, so please check in when  you find resources that were helpful to you.

References
 
Kunneman, M., Pel-Little, R., Bouwman, F.H., Gillissen, F., Schoonenboom, N.S.M., Claus, J.J., . . . Smets, E.M.A (2017. Patients’ and caregivers’ views on conversations and shared decision making in diagnostic testing for Alzheimer’s disease: The ABIDE project. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, 3, 314-322.
Lawrence, P.T., Grotzke, M.P., Rosenblum, Y., Nelson, R.E., La Fleur, J., Miller, K.L, . . . Cannon, G.W. (2017). The Bone Health Team: A team-based approach to improving osteoporosis care for primary care patients. Journal of Primary and Community Health, 8(3), 135-140. DOI: 10.1177/2150131916687888.
Pulchaski, C.M. (2001). The role of spirituality in health care. Proceedings (Baylor University Medical Center) 14(4) 352-357.
Sorbye,L.M.,  Skhaerven, R., Klunsoyr, K.,  & Morken, N.H. (2017). Gestational diabetes mellitus and interpregnancy weight change: a population-based cohort study. PLoS Medicine, 14(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002367.
 

1.     First you should address these questions when conducting survey research:

• What do you want to know?
• Why do you need the data?
• Who do you need to survey?
• How will you get the data?
• What resources do you need?

2. Next you need to be aware of the kinds of data that can be collected through survey research:

• Demographics

·       Knowledge

• Attitudes
• Behaviors
• Opinions
• Evaluation
• Needs assessment

 3. Then you should identify the levels of measurement of the data you plan to collect:

• Nominal – names categories (e.g., gender:  male or female)
• Ordinal – rank orders categories (e.g., patient acuity level:  critical, poor, fair, good))
• Interval – continuous scale with no real zero (e.g., Anxiety score of 20 to 100)
• Ratio– continuous scale with real zero (e.g., yrs. of nursing experience 0 to 40)

 4.  Next decide on what approaches you plan to use in designing the survey instrument:
Open-ended Question

• What is your age?  ______ years

Closed-ended Question

• Mutually Exclusive Options

Gender:           ___      Male  ___      Female

• Collectively Exhaustive Options

                        What was your basic nursing education program?
                        ____    diploma
                        ____    associate degree (ADN)
                        ____    baccalaureate degree (BSN)
                        ____    generic master’s degree (MSN)
                        ____    nurse doctorate degree (ND)

• Neither Mutually Exclusive Nor Collectively Exhaustive Options

                        Which journals do you read on a regular basis? (check all that apply)
                        ____    AJN
                        ____    Heart & Lung
                        ____    Nursing Research
                        ____    Other (specify ____________________)
Checklists
1.  Nursing is a strong profession.                                ____ Yes            ____ No
2.  Nursing is a highly-valued profession.                    ____ Yes            ____ No
3.  Nursing actions are dependent on doctors’ orders.  ____ Yes            ____ No
Likert Scales
 
Statement
Strongly Agree
Agree
Not Sure
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Examples
1.  The nursing profession is strong.
 
2.  Nursing is a highly-valued profession.
 
3.  Nursing actions are dependent on doctors’ orders
 
  
Semantic Differential Scales
                                    NURSING
Strong             :___:___:___:___:___:___:___:Weak
Highly Valued :___:___:___:___:___:___:___:Under-Valued
Dependent            :___:___:___:___:___:___:___:Independent
Visual Analog Scales
            I believe that the nursing profession is:
Weak ____________________________________________ Strong
 
5.Remember to always measure your variables at the highest level of measurement possible. You can always transform interval and ratio levels of measurement to nominal and ordinal levels of measurement but you cannot transform nominal and ordinal levels of measurement into interval and ratio levels of measurement.