Susan A. Letvak

She obtained her PhD in Nursing at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY in 1996, her MS in Nursing at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY in 1992 and her BS in Nursing at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY in 1984. Her areas of expertise include: * Patient outcomes and Nursing workforce * Qualitative Reseach Methods * Relational Theory * Gerontology - Aging of the workforce

There are 39 included publications by Susan A. Letvak :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Assisting hospital staff with treating and preventing back pain 2011 544 Despite recent reports that occupational injuries requiring days away from work decreased since 2008, hospitals still remain in the top 10 industries for occupational injury, with 6.7 workers per 100 employees reporting an injury in 2009 (Bureau of L...
Commentary on “bloodroot: life stories of nurse practitioners in rural Appalachia 2007 2580 Caldwell (2007) presents us with powerful narrative research, weaving the life stories of nurse practitioners in rural Appalachia with the culture of those who call these ancient mountains home. Moustakas? heuristic phenomenology is used to describe ...
Commentary on “self-care activities captured through discussion among community dwelling elders 2007 1183 The purpose of Dunn and Riley-Doucet’s study was to identify holistic self-care activities used to maintain health by older adults. Four focus groups were held to collect data from 28 older adults who were recruited from an urban senior center and se...
Commentary on “spirituality and stress management in healthy adults 2006 3790 The purpose of this pilot study was to determine whether a 6-week spiritual intervention (SPIRIT-6©) would reduce stress and increase spiritual well-being in healthy community residents. An additional purpose was to explore how healthy adults describ...
A Community’s Awareness and Perceptions of Genomic Medicine 2009 2407 Background: Focus groups were conducted in a mid-sized community to explore community members’ awareness and perceptions of genomic medicine and identify effective methods to educate the public about this topic. Methods: Thirteen focus groups were co...
Critique of Silva’s philosophy, science, theory: interrelationships and implications for nursing research 1997 5163 Nurses have made strides in increasing the understanding of the relationships among philosophy, science, and theory since Mary C. Silva first proposed examining their connection in an article written in 1977. Researchers have come to recognize the tw...
Depression in Hospital-Employed Nurses 2012 16173 Depression impacts 9.4% of the adult population in the United States, and it is known to impact work performance. Nurses with depression are not only likely to suffer themselves, but their illness may have an impact on their coworkers and potentially...
Differences in health, productivity and quality of care in younger and older nurses 2013 9614 Aim To determine if younger and older hospital employed nurses have differences in their self-reported health, health related productivity and quality of care.Background An understanding of age cohort differences may assist nurse managers in understa...
The experience of being an older nurse 2003 2390 The nursing workforce is aging at an unprecedented rate, yet we know very little about the expe-riences of older staff nurses. A qualitative design with purposeful sampling was used to describe the experience of being an older staff nurse. Data were ...
The experience of being an older operating room nurse 2003 7508 THIS QUALITATIVE STUDY used a purposive sample of perioperative nurses age 50 or older to describe the experience of being an older perioperative nurse. Three themes were identified from data analysis: growing old in the OR, interpersonal and organiz...
Factors Influencing Work Productivity and Intent to Stay in Nursing 2008 16229 There continues to be a shortage of registered nurses (RNs) with a possible predicted short fall of 36% by 2020 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2006). Despite recent improvements in the hospital nursing shortage, the ave...
Falls in the elderly: A multi-factorial problem 2000 2456 A74-year-old woman is brought to the emergency department via stretcher by EMS after a fall at home. The paramedic informs you that the woman said she fell in the kitchen while preparing her husband’s lunch. She was found lying on the kitchen floor w...
Graduating nurses face a new reality 2008 8525 The "reality shock" phase may be getting longer for new graduate nurses who need manageable workloads and adequate help to feel satisfied. Nursing job satisfaction has become exceedingly important in organizations in light of the continual struggle ...
Health and safety of the older registered nurse 2005 4188 The nursing workforce is aging at an unprecedented rate yet little is known about the health and safety of older registered nurses (RNs). The survey reported here examined the relationships between demographic variables, job attributes (job satisfact...
The Impact of Nurses' Health on Productivity and Quality of Care 2011 4817 An aging workforce and high-stress environments have led to more nurses working with their own health problems, which in turn affects productivity. To assess this issue, the authors conducted focus groups with nurses and nurse managers. The authors d...
The Impact of Worker Health on Long Term Care: Implications for Nursing Managers 2010 2147 Long-term care (LTC) facilities face many challenges, including retention of qualified and caring staff and maintaining high-quality care. In 2008, the Institute of Medicine (IOM)1 reported widespread consensus that there are insufficient numbers of ...
The importance of social support for rural mental health 2002 11881 While the mentally ill are considered to be vulnerable as a group, those who are mentally ill and reside in rural communities are at a greater disadvantage due to limited access to health care, a scarcity of resources, and traditional cultural belief...
Inclusion of women in nursing research. 2004 1568 Background: Although the inclusion of women in research has been examined in medical publications, little is known about how federal mandates have influenced the inclusion of women in research published in nursing journals. Objective: This study aim...
Infusing gerontological nursing content into advanced practice education. 2007 3357 The inclusion of gerontology content in the nursing curriculum is paramount as our population of older adults grows. As one of 10 recipients of the John A. Hartford Foundation/AACN awards for Enhancing Gerontological and Geriatric Nursing Education f...
Innovation in Engaging Hospital Staff and University Faculty in Research 2011 1636 Purpose: The purpose of this article was to describe an innovative faculty-staff engagement dinner that was conducted to enhance collaboration between university faculty and hospital staff. Specific steps used to develop the dinner, as well as outcom...
An innovative strategy to enhance new faculty success. 2003 2945 Faculty stress is a factor in the current shortage of nursing faculty. New faculty members in schools of nursing are subject to stress from many sources. This article reports on an innovative strategy that decreases stress for new faculty while facil...
Inside the medicine cabinet…: Do you know your staff’s common medication usage and how it can impact their practice? 2009 1248 A growing number of Americans use prescription and nonprescription medications on a regular basis. An aging population, rapid development and release of new medications, and changes in health practice are all responsible for increased usage.1 Indeed,...
Integrating gerontology competencies into graduate nursing programs. 2006 5118 Current demographic and health care utilization trends strongly indicate a rapidly increasing demand for nurses who are well qualified to care for older adults. Advanced practice nurses are positioned to assume leadership roles in geriatric nursing c...
Integration of gerontology content in nongeriatric undergraduate nursing courses 2006 2072 During the last several years, a school of nursing in the southeastern United States has made concerted efforts to integrate geriatric content into every undergraduate course except obstetrics. Even the pediatric nursing course has infused content ab...
Managing nurses with health concerns 2012 1608 Healthcare reform requires that hospitals take more accountability for providing the highest quality, most cost-effective care. It's accepted that nurses are critical in determining the quality of care in hospitals and nurse managers have the respons...
The meaning of insulin to Hispanic immigrants with type 2 diabetes and their families. 2012 2013 Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of insulin among a sample of Hispanic immigrants with type 2 diabetes and their family members/significant others. Method Forty-three Hispanics with type 2 diabetes and their family memb...
Myths and realities of ageism and nursing 2002 10105 Ageism is pervasive throughout society, and it is an especially important issue for nurses because the nursing workforce is aging rapidly. This article explores ageism as it applies to women and nurses, along with the myths and realities about this p...
New Graduate Survey: Factors That Influence New Nurses’ Selection of First Clinical Position 2013 5523 Aim: The aim was to survey nurses with 2 to 3 years’ experience to determine what factors were involved in the choice of their first nursing position and if they were still in that position.Background: A false sense that the nursing shortage has ende...
Nurses as working women 2001 2856 Women today make up nearly half of the nation's workforce. A number of these women have children at home, and women also often are responsible for providing care to older adult family members or friends. The different roles assigned to women in today...
Nurses’ Presenteeism and Its Effects on Self-Reported Quality of Care and Costs 2012 5312 Objective: Although research has been conducted on how nurse staffing levels affect outcomes, there has been little investigation into how the health-related productivity of nurses is related to quality of care. Two major causes of worker presenteeis...
Overview and Summary: Healthy Nurses: Perspectives on Caring for Ourselves 2014 6149 Every few years this joke goes around, “Did you hear about the body found alongside the road? They don’t know her name but they know she is a nurse because the back was broken, the ankles were swollen, the nerves were frayed, and the bladder was full...
Perceptions of barriers in managing diabetes: perspectives of Hispanic immigrant patients and family members. 2013 4916 Purpose Hispanics show poorer self-management of type 2 diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Although previous studies have reported socioeconomic and cultural barriers to diabetes self-management by Hispanics, little is known about perceived barriers ...
Postanesthesia care of the traumatic brain injured patient 2003 3122 Each year 1.5 million people in the United States suffer a traumatic brain injury (7BI), and many of these patients require immediate surgery. 7BI patients provide additional assessment and technological challenges for perianesthesia nursing care. A ...
Reliability and Validity of the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration for Nurse Practitioners 2013 6706 Background: The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration (JSATPNC) has been used to measure attitudes regarding nurse-physician collaboration. However, psychometric evaluation is lacking for the nurse practitioner (NP) popula...
Retaining the older nurse 2002 3811 The nursing workforce is aging more rapidly than the workforce as a whole, and fewer young people are entering the profession. It is imperative that older nurses be retained, not only for their experience and expertise, but also to prevent worsening ...
Sexually transmitted diseases in the elderly: What you need to know: The young aren't the only ones at risk for STDs 1996 25616 Many nurses might be surprised by the existence of STDs in elderly persons, but the incidence of STDs in this population is significant in terms of newly acquired diseases and residual complications from prior infections.1 Ageist attitudes cause many...
Should a staff nurse’s age be a consideration in making patient and shift assignments? 2005 2323 I think it is entirely appropriate to consider a nurse’s age in making assignments. The mean age of staff nurses is now well over 40, and many aging nurses have concerns about their own health and safety as well as the health and safety of their pati...
Targeted Group Advising. 2004 1397 Student advising is an integral part of the faculty student relationship. However, with the increasing enrollment of pre-nursing students 1 and the complexity of university requirements, advising requires more time and expertise. Further, many studen...
We Cannot Ignore Nurses' Health Anymore: A Synthesis of the Literature on Evidence-Based Strategies to Improve Nurse Health 2013 3237 Nurses are known to suffer from health problems because of the physical and stressful nature of nurses' work. With the advent of health care reform and the increasing importance of nurses to quality and cost-effective health care, the health of nurse...