In a recent clinical trial, JHUSON nurse researchers including Victoria Mock, PhD, RN; Christine St. Ours, MS, RN; Sue Hall, MS, RN; Anne Belcher, PhD, RN; and Sharon Krumm, PhD, RN, tested the effects of a nurse-directed exercise intervention to manage fatigue in cancer patients. They employed a conceptual model—the Levine Conservation Model—to develop a randomized study of cancer patients being treated with radiation therapy or adjunctive chemotherapy. The study was funded jointly by the NCI and the NINR (R01 NRO 4991) and supported by the NIH-funded Center for Collaborative Intervention Research (P30 NR 008 995-01). In the Journal of Advanced Nursing, they report the model proved to be a useful organizing frame–work for their study. The authors note, “Our experience, applicable on an international level, strongly supports the value of using a conceptual model as a framework for nursing research.”
In another study focusing on fatigue, JHUSON researcher Fannie Gaston-Johansson, PhD, RN, and associates from Gšteborg University Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden sought to better understand the phenomenon in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Gaston-Johansson and colleagues used three different key measurement scales to conduct a study among CHF diagnosed patients. Their findings, presented in “Fatigue Is a Prevalent and Severe Symptom Associated with Uncertainty and Sense of Coherence in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure,” appear online in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.