Sickness absence has been a long-standing concern of the nursing profession. In this paper, sickness is construed as illness or the form a complaint takes. Absence is formulated as a form of coping. A longitudinal study using an experimental and control group design was carried out with student nurses using autogenic regulation training (ART). Comparisons of the relationship between ART and sickness absence records were recorded for: total days off; certificated and uncertificated days off; uncertificated days off; certificated days off; total blocks and total wards; first and second ward allocations; and average time sick. It is argued that ART helped significantly to reduce overall sickness absence in the experimental group when compared with the control group subjects. Reasons for this are discussed and issues for further research are raised. It is concluded from the present study that ART has a contribution to make in preparing student nurses to cope with the demands of nursing and sickness absence.

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SUMMARY In this article I suggest that there is now an overdue case for increasing the provision of counselling services to nurses employed in the National Health Service (NHS). This view is grounded in what nurses are saying and doing about counselling, and occupational stress research in nursing.

The present study was conducted in a small 20-bed hospital for severely subnormal children. Ten children who had evidenced a history of problem behaviour were the subjects of behaviour modification programmes aimed at reducing the frequency of problem behaviour. The main aim of the study was to establish if nursing assistants can become effective co-therapists. Two questions were investigated: (1) Can nursing assistants after 12 months' training have a sound knowledge of the principles of behaviour modification and (2) Can these nursing assistants effectively employ behaviour modification techniques which result in reductions of problem behaviour episodes? It is argued that although nursing assistants may have had an inadequate and erroneous knowledge of the principles of behaviour modification, they were able to employ behavioural techniques which affected reductions in the problem behaviours recorded. Clinical difficulties related to applied research of this kind are raised in discussion.