Purpose To assess the feasibility and acceptability of the “ Naru ” Program, a Reiki-informed meditative intervention for first-year nursing students, and to estimate pre–post change in distress and well-being. Design Single-group pretest–posttest pilot feasibility study. Methods Informed by Transitions Theory and holistic nursing, a seven-session hybrid program combined the spiritual precepts of Reiki with Joshin Kokyu Ho breathing meditation and guided imagery; five mental health nurses appraised its content. Of 413 students invited, 61 were screened, 29 eligible, 22 started, and 12 completed. Feasibility outcomes were uptake, retention, adherence, and acceptability; distress and well-being were assessed with the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales – 21 and the Psychological Well-Being Manifestation Measure Scale, with Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Findings The program was delivered as designed and well received: participants reproduced the meditation independently, some during clinical placements. Uptake was 14.8% and retention 54.5%; attrition concentrated at year-end. Distress decreased and well-being increased on all retained subscales, with large effect sizes and bootstrap intervals excluding zero for all but one measure; reliable improvement was most frequent in well-being and happiness. Conclusions Delivery and acceptability were established; recruitment and retention were not, and require changes to timing and recruitment before a controlled trial. Efficacy cannot be inferred.
Background and Purpose Chronic disease management within contemporary health care systems increasingly relies on nurses functioning in roles analogous to holistic nurse coaches, emphasizing self-management, behavior change, and whole-person care (American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation. (2023). Nurse coach role and competencies . https://www.ahncc.org ). Within the Military Health System (MHS), chronic illness further affects readiness, resilience, and long-term force sustainability. Despite these demands, onboarding and continuing education for disease management (DM) nurses remain largely task-based and lack standardized, competency-driven preparation grounded in holistic nursing principles. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a competency-based training module on nurses’ knowledge of and self-efficacy to deliver holistic disease management services. Methods A one-group pretest–posttest pre-experimental design was used with registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses at a large military medical center. Participants completed a DM knowledge assessment and a self-efficacy questionnaire before and after an asynchronous training module grounded in holistic nursing, nurse coaching, and lifestyle medicine competencies. Findings Statistically significant improvements were observed in both knowledge ( p = .003) and self-efficacy ( p = <.001) following the intervention. Conclusions Findings support competency-based education as an effective strategy for strengthening holistic nurse coaching capacity, workforce readiness, and chronic disease care delivery.
Objective To map publication trends and the thematic, geographical, and collaborative structure of research on yoga, meditation, and related contemplative practices among nurses. Methods A bibliometric analysis was conducted using the Scopus database. The search combined terms relating to mental well-being, stress, burnout, quality of life, productivity, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, mind–body interventions, and nursing personnel, with publication years restricted to 2015–2024 and English-language records. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer to examine annual publication trends, leading journals and authors, geographical distribution, co-occurrence patterns, and collaboration networks. Screening and data extraction were conducted by the first author using predefined eligibility criteria, with multiple rounds of verification during data cleaning. The absence of independent dual-reviewer screening is acknowledged as a limitation. Results A total of 382 articles met the inclusion criteria and were published in 63 peer-reviewed journals from 46 countries. About 15% of the studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs); the rest were quasi-experimental, pre-experimental, reviews, and conceptual/theoretical papers. In 14 of these articles, the names of countries were not mentioned, although some authors were contacted by mail for this information; however, they declined to provide it. The primary result is a threefold increase in publications over the last 10 years across all study designs, with the major ones being controlled studies, RCTs, cross-sectional studies, and meta-analyses. Most publications originated from the United States ( n = 143), followed by China ( n = 23) and the United Kingdom ( n = 18). The findings also show that the USA has 16 times as many research publications as India. The top three authors were Kemper, K.J., Chesak, S.S., and Sawyer, A.T., and the top three journals were Holistic Nursing Practice ( n = 19), Journal of Holistic Nursing ( n = 19), followed by International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ( n = 13). Conclusion Research on nurses’ well-being and contemplative practices has grown substantially, with mindfulness and psychological well-being emerging as dominant themes. Geographical, collaborative, and thematic gaps indicate scope for broader and more integrated research within holistic nursing.
Prayer before anesthesia induction is a philosophically significant act that may reveal how vulnerability, agency, dignity, and trust are experienced at the threshold of unconsciousness. This philosophical analysis examines patient-initiated prayer from a holistic nursing perspective, bringing spiritual coping theory, accounts of vulnerability and fiduciary trust, conceptions of dignity and personhood, and cultural humility into dialog. Prayer may represent fear, meaning-making, gratitude, surrender, cultural identity, or personal agency as responsibility for bodily safety shifts to the team. Its meaning cannot be determined from observation alone and should remain defined by the patient. Religious or spiritual faith and trust in anesthesia professionals need not compete but may coexist in one person. The analysis argues that ethically responsive holistic care requires recognition of possible meaning without assuming interpretive authority, together with curiosity without intrusion, relational respect, and professional boundaries. The PAUSE prompt is offered only as an unvalidated translation of these commitments into reflective practice. By reframing prayer as a possible expression of embodied, relational, and spiritual agency rather than solely a sign of anxiety, this analysis extends holistic nursing knowledge and emphasizes that acknowledging the person who remains fully present before unconsciousness is part of competent and ethically responsive anesthesia care.
Purpose of Study To clarify algorithmic compassion as a nursing-relevant concept and examine its implications for holistic nursing. Design of study Walker and Avant concept analysis with conceptual model development. Method A structured literature search was conducted across nursing, biomedical, psychological, interdisciplinary, and technology-focused databases. Twenty-nine sources were retained because they directly supported concept use, defining attributes, antecedents, consequences, empirical referents, or case construction. Findings Algorithmic compassion was defined as an artificial intelligence (AI)-mediated caring interaction in which an algorithmic system interprets affective and distress cues, generates a simulated empathic response, adapts to the person's context, and supports comfort, coping, connection, and therapeutic engagement while remaining ethically bounded by human judgment, dignity, consent, privacy, authenticity, and professional responsibility. Seven defining attributes were identified: AI-mediated caring interface, affective interpretation, simulated empathic response, relational presence, person-responsive adaptation, therapeutic support purpose, and ethically bounded adjunctive role. Antecedents included care-related support need, AI-enabled relational capacity, person-responsive design, user access and consent, and ethical governance. Consequences included comfort, coping, connection, reduced distress or loneliness, therapeutic engagement, and ethical boundary-setting. Conclusions Algorithmic compassion names a supervised, ethically bounded AI-mediated interaction that may support selected compassion-related functions while preserving human nursing presence, professional judgment, and whole-person care without assigning consciousness, moral agency, or authentic compassion to technology.
