When individuals must deal with potentially fatal diseases their lives change in many ways. This qualitative study was designed to investigate this critical life event. The authors interviewed a convenience sample (N = 15) of 10 women with cancer and 5 men with HIV/AIDS. Findings suggest that spirituality is an essential component to feelings of health and well-being. Many of the subjects viewed spirituality as a bridge between hopelessness and meaningfulness in life. Those who had found meaning in their disease thought they had a better quality of life now than they had before the diagnosis.

This study compared differences in knowledge of pain assessment and pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain management strategies among 232 L.P.N.s and R.N.s from three hospitals. Twenty-three adult medical, surgical, and special care units were represented. The "Knowledge of Pain Management" tool measured knowledge of pain assessment, drug and nondrug strategies, and was based on AHCPR guidelines. Scores ranged from 24% to 92%. There were significant differences in scores across hospitals and between R.N.s and L.P.N.s. The mean score was 72% for L.P.N.s and 75% for R.N.s. There was a significant difference in pharmacologic scores between L.P.N.s versus A.D./A.A.-R.N.s, B.S.N-R.N.s, and M.S.N.-M.S.-R.N.s but not between L.P.N.s and diploma-R.N.s. There were significant differences in overall knowledge scores between L.P.N.s versus B.S.N.-R.N.s but not A.D./A.A.-R.N.s, diploma-R.N.s, and M.S.N./M.S-R.N.s. Finding suggest the need for aggressive nursing education programs offered in academic and clinical settings to assist nurses in effectively managing the universal phenomenon of pain.

Communities are organizing into coalitions with the goal of reducing tobacco use, particularly among youth. Adolescents could make effective and persuasive anti-tobacco advocates in their respective communities, but their attitudes about tobacco advocacy and their perceptions of their own abilities as advocates are unknown. Therefore, the present project assessed attitudes and self-perceptions about anti-tobacco advocacy in 159 high school students attending a tobacco advocacy conference. After the meeting, they completed the Anti-Tobacco Advocacy Questionnaire, which has five factors (Activism, Personal Commitment, Banning Advertisements, Tobacco Morality and Peer Pressure to Use Tobacco). Overall, these high school students were moderately positive about anti-tobacco advocacy; girls more so than boys. Further, they were very positive about their own commitment to avoid tobacco and willingness to speak to others personally, but only moderately positive about their activism abilities. An implication is that community coalitions that include youth might want to focus on building their activism skills as they guide them in managing their youthful energy and enthusiasm.

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Though parents who smoked in high school and those who did not agreed that children are targeted and should be banned from tobacco use, parents who did not smoke in high school believed it more strongly. Parents who had a history of smoking changed more on the issue of banning, perhaps because they had more room to change. The study concluded that media campaigns can change parents' attitudes.