No abstract

Advanced practice nurses play an important role in educating women about menstrual health. Clinicians can use this information to assess women's attitudes and beliefs about menstrual symptoms and to educate them about misconceptions. The FDA approved Seasonale in September 2003, the first dedicated OC created to reduce the number of menstrual cycles yearly. Women need to be educated about the pros and cons of suppression; some women will benefit from suppression, and others will consider it unnatural.

An examination of women’s transition through menopause provides a remarkable example of nursing’s contributions to feminist scholarship. The predominant biomedical model perpetuates the idea that menopause is a deficiency disease, whereas feminist and nurse scholars have deconstructed this paradigm and have reclaimed menopause as a part of midlife women’s developmental stage. We begin this chapter with a review of the birth of women’s health scholarship as it is the foundation for theory that undergirds feminist nursing research. We then discuss the tenets of feminist scholarship. The historical context of menopause is reviewed briefly to highlight the ways in which menopause was transformed from a normal physiological event to a disease. Using this as a backdrop, we reviewed nursing studies in two emerging bodies of knowledge. We reviewed 10 studies in the area of “women reclaiming menopause” and found that over all women believe the menopausal transition is a normal developmental stage. The second area of new research looks at “menopause across cultures.” The studies of Korean, Indian, and Thai women reviewed demonstrate that similar to other health issues, the experience of Western women cannot be universalized, and most important, researchers must take into consideration the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that impact women’s experience of the menopause transition.

This article examines the literature related to the media, body image, and diet/weight issues in children and young women. The media holds an awesome power to influence young women, bombarding them with images of abnormally thin models who seem to represent the ideal. When the majority of adolescents inevitably fail to achieve the extremely thin image they crave, body dissatisfaction results, and disordered eating can begin. Emerging research in the pediatric and adolescent literature demonstrates that children as young as 5 are already anxious about their bodies, and want to be thinner. This obsessive interest in body weight is only fueled by a dramatic increase in the number of Internet Web sites devoted to disordered eating. Unfortunately many of the Web sites are "pro-ana" (pro anorexia) and "pro-mia" (pro bulimia); these Web sites encourage young people at risk to begin starving themselves, or to begin binge-purging. As nurses know, each of these scenarios can lead to serious illness, and sometimes to death.

A feminist model of practice is grounded in feminist theories that are applicable to the health and health care of women. The goal of this model is to change how health care is delivered to individual women, but also to seek social transformation. Four major themes recur in this model: symmetry in provider-patient relationships, access to information, shared decision-making, and social change. This article describes ways in which clinicians can integrate these themes into practice. Suggestions for maintaining symmetry in the traditional power relationship include decreasing physical, social and personal barriers and attentive listening to patients' stories. Access to information involves creating an atmosphere that is conducive to teaching and learning, but also helping patients access other sources of information. Shared decision-making is central to feminist practice and is attainable when patients have been empowered and are knowledgeable about their healthcare needs. Social change entails the ever vigilant clinician who is familiar with the latest literature, both professional and lay, in order to critically analyse research studies, our colleagues' interpretations of those studies and how recommendations for practice are reached. Collectively, clinicians work with the public to strive for change within the healthcare system and society as a whole.