Integrative Nursing, Mary Jo Kreitzer and Mary Koithan, 2014. New York, NY: Oxford University Press/Weil Integrative Medicine Library. Softcover, 575 pages, $59.95
This book places nursing at the table of integrative medicine. As part of the Integrative Medicine Library (Andrew Weill, MD, Series Editor), Kreitzer and Koithan's work is scholarly and evidence-based yet delivers a practical "how to" lesson.
Nursing is a natural profession for integrative health. It is in our thinking and our culture. This book pulls together the many elements of nursing, which we have included historically, and brings it to a whole new level. The authors identify integrative nursing as "a way of being-knowing-doing that advances the health and wellbeing of persons, families, and communities through caring/healing relationships. Integrative nurses use evidence to inform traditional and emerging interventions that support whole person/whole systems healing (p. 4).
Six principles of integrative nursing are identified for the reader (pp. 6-14):
* Human beings are whole systems, inseparable from their environments.
* Human beings have the innate capacity for health and well-being.
* Nature has healing and restorative properties that contribute to health and well-being.
* Integrative nursing is person-centered and relationship-based.
* Integrative nursing practice is informed by evidence and uses the full range of therapeutic modalities to support/augment the healing process, moving from least intensive/invasive to more, depending on need and context.
* Integrative nursing focuses on the health and well-being of caregivers as well as those they serve.
Kreitzer and Koithan demonstrated integration in the way they pulled this book together. Serving as editors, they reached out to other disciplines and expert nurses from around the world. There are 73 contributors, to include 55 nurses. While the majority of the contributors come from throughout the United States, others are from Germany, Canada, England, Sweden, Turkey, and Ireland. This has resulted in a compilation that presents the essence of nursing in caring and healing by integrating traditional clinical practices with the more holistic, alternative, and spiritual practices.
The book is organized into 6 sections, each with several chapters:
1. Foundations of Integrative Nursing
2. Optimizing Wellness
3. Symptom Management and Integrative Nursing
4. Integrative Nursing Applications
5. Integrative Nursing: Models of Education
6. Integrative Nursing: Global Perspectives-State of the Practice
A practical application of integrative thinking is included as part of Section III: Symptom Management and Integrative Nursing (pp. 187-328). Here the reader is presented with 9 chapters that address how to operationalize the Principles of Integrative Nursing. Those principles are applied to symptoms such as nausea, stress, sleep, anxiety, depressed mood, fatigue, pain, cognitive impairment, and care of the human spirit. The authors of these chapters provide an explanation of integrative nursing assessment and management of the symptom as well as case scenarios. Using nausea as an example, the chapter authors address the following:
* Four classifications of nausea and vomiting (acute, delayed, anticipatory, and chronic)
* The pathophysiology of nausea
* Prevalence of nausea
* Chemotherapy-related nausea
* Postoperative nausea
* Pregnancy-related nausea
* An integrative approach to nausea-focus on the whole person, the complexity of personal systems, and the systems in which they care for their patients.
The case scenario for nausea focuses on a 60-year-old woman awaiting cardiac bypass surgery, who has a history of nausea after surgical procedures. Integrative nursing care starts with the nurse listening to the patient as a whole person and then discussing both traditional and alternative therapies with her. The integrative nurse includes goals and additional therapies such as dietary, aromatherapy, and self-acupressure. She or he gives the patient a sample of essential oils (ginger and spearmint) on a cotton ball to try and demonstrates how to provide acupressure to the P6 point on the wrist. These discussions are shared with the medical team on rounds.
The chapter offers even more integrative approaches. Five tiers of interventions are shared, with detailed approaches within each tier. The reader not only reviews traditional approaches to nausea but also learns about alternatives.
This book is not just for the acute care setting. The authors address multiple practice settings along the care continuum. They routinely include other disciplines in their approach.
Whether you are a student or a practitioner who wants a reference text to help you include alternative therapies in your practice, this book can serve you. It can be an invaluable resource to the nurse leader trying to advance current nursing models into the next era of health care and to understand the emerging holistic therapies.
These authors and editors have set the table for future directions for nursing. The book is scholarly, comprehensive, evidence-based, practical, and inspiring. Kreitzer and Koithan give a language to nursing that can be easily understood and respected by physicians, patients, and others as a discipline that has always been integral to patient care. The new health system is calling for more advanced practice nurses and care coordinators. I believe integrative nursing will be part of that call.
Self-Care and YOU ... Caring for the Caregiver, Kim Richards, Elizabeth Sheen, and Maria Mazzer, 2014. Silver Springs, MD: Nursebooks.org (publishing program of ANA). Softcover, 40 pages.
The Integrative Nursing book mentioned earlier devotes a chapter to self-care (essential to the integrative nurse). Richards et al have published a brief, easy-to-read, practical guide to self-care for all nurses. Their approach is centered on 6 pathways to self-care. These pathways are seen as circular and consist of the following:
1. Physical
2. Mental
3. Emotional
4. Spiritual
5. Relationships
6. Choice
The authors address burnout, nutrition, stress, exercise, sleep, and accountability. One chapter is devoted totally to stress. The reader is introduced to mindfulness, meditation, exercise, self-talk, yoga and tai chi. Emotional, spiritual, relationship, and choice self-care are all pulled together for the self-nurturing caregiver. This is done in only 40 pages, with evidence to back recommendations. This book should serve as a good primer for those starting out in the lifelong journey of self-care. For those who want to delve deeper into the subject, an extensive bibliography is provided for further study.
-Elizabeth (Betty) Falter, MS, RN, NEA