ANS. Advances in nursing science
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This study examined patterns, variations, and existential turning points in young mothers' narratives of self and their visions of the future as part of a larger hermeneutic, longitudinal study. The study was philosophically based in the phenomenology of everyday practices as inherently meaningful, situated, and historically derived and drew on dialogical views of the self. ⋯ Findings offer a situated understanding of young mothering and highlight meaningful distinctions in the ways young mothers experience the self and project themselves into the future. The discovery of patterns and variations in the young mother's sense of self and future have implications for guiding clinical practice and are preliminary to designing programs and interventions that are tailored to the practical understanding and situated possibilities of young mothers.
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The reinstatement of social activism as a central feature of nursing practice has been advocated by nursing scholars and is consistent with contemporary conceptualizations of primary health care and health promotion that are rooted in critical social theory's concept of empowerment. Advocacy oral history from a feminist postmodern perspective offers a method of research that has the potential and purpose to empower participants to transform their political and social realities and may, therefore, be considered social activism. A recent study of public health nurses who had experienced significant distress through the reduction and redirection of their practice is provided as an exemplar of advocacy oral history. Philosophies underpinning the research method and characteristics of feminist postmodern research are reviewed and implications for the use of this methodology for social activism in nursing are drawn.
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The issue of female circumcision takes on special significance as more women migrate to the United States from countries where the practice has religious and traditional underpinnings. Female circumcision is a problem unfamiliar to most Western health care practitioners. This article describes an ethnographic study of the types of female circumcision, the reasons for and against the practice, the health implications of this practice, and cultural attitudes of circumcised women both in Western Africa and as migrant refugees living in the United States. Ethical dilemmas in dealing with this practice and implications for nurses and health care providers are discussed.
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The tension between power and caring in nursing is evident through the volume of nursing literature related to power and powerlessness and through nurses' discomfort with notions of power. A dialectical examination of the concepts of power and caring reveals that at one level they appear to be polar opposites. Additional layers of the dialectic reflect different relationships between power and caring until they are seen as intertwined and mutually generative concepts in an approach to caring labeled "empowered caring".
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This investigation answered the question, What meaning do parents give to the decision to authorize or to withdraw or forgo authorization of life-sustaining treatment for a child? Using an exploratory design, the author interviewed 20 families who had faced this decision in the prior 6 to 12 months. From content analysis, parents' essential meaning was experienced through their sense of self, their being, and an ethic of responsibility. Parents' decisions reflected values regarding the eight key themes of life, pain and suffering, quality of life, not self, respect for person or best interest, family, faith and nature, and technology.