Scope of practice issues in forensic nursing

1. There is significant role variation, across the Western world, in relation to how forensic nurses practice. 2. The authors conducted a pilot survey of forensic nurses in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom to examine forensic nursing practice, role definition, and role boundaries. 3. Issues arising from the data include the visibility of forensic nurses, the client group, forensic-specific education, and role development.     

Recruitment & retention. A successful model in forensic psychiatric nursing

1. The recruitment and retention of forensic psychiatric nurses in this highly competitive environment has been identified as a critical issue. 2. In response to the need to expand services, the development, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative model that has demonstrated success in the recruitment and retention of nurses for this highly specialized area of practice are described. 3. The successful recruitment and retention of forensic psychiatric nurses may be facilitated by developing and implementing strategies that integrate the goals and objectives of the organization with the needs of individual nurses.     

The clinical practice of juvenile forensic psychiatric nurses

The differences in working with an adolescent population within the nonmedical structure of the juvenile justice system provides a basis for claiming forensic psychiatric nursing has a specialized knowledge and skill base for meeting the needs of this juvenile population. Future development of forensic psychiatric nursing depends on continued articulation of the role of forensic nurses in these highly specialized settings and development of empirically based forensic psychiatric nursing interventions. Juvenile forensic psychiatric nursing requires specific personal attributes and new competencies that extend beyond traditional psychiatric nursing skills. These nurses must be confident in their clinical skills, demonstrate strong leadership capabilities, and be tolerant of the uncertainties associated with these unique environments.     

Girl Scouts Beyond Bars: a unique opportunity for forensic psychiatric nursing.

The interplay of victim and perpetrator roles experienced between daughters and their mothers provides for intricately complex interactions within a family and the community. Unique opportunities exist for forensic psychiatric nurses to articulate their nursing roles against health promotion and illness prevention programs for incarcerated women and their families. Participation in community-based projects allows forensic psychiatric nurses to observe and respond to the total environment of offenders and their families.     

Caring in forensic nursing. Expanding the holistic model

Nurses have practiced forensic nursing for many years without formal recognition of the domain as a discipline for specialized study. Forensic nursing expands the traditional concept of holism to include the medical-legal aspects of potential or actual client problems. The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN) recently have designated forensic nursing as a unique specialty. Recognition of forensic nursing as a specialty area of practice within nursing mandates that the specialty define and explicate its major conceptual base. A concept germane to the practice of forensic nursing is that of caring. Caring as a central concept to the role of this specialty is discussed, and the implications for its inclusion in a curriculum preparing forensic nurses are explored.     

Psychological effects of violence on forensic nurses

1. Forensic nurses frequently work in violent settings without regard for self-preservation to save the lives of injured individuals or investigate the deaths of deceased individuals. 2. Cases involving children and victims with disfiguring injuries, and incidents when their personal safety was compromised are most disturbing to forensic nurses. 3. Providing means for health care professionals to cope appropriately encourages healthy healing. 4. Forensic nurses must learn to self-assess and recognize the signs and symptoms associated with unhealthy coping, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder.     

Mental health promotion in forensic & correctional environments

I hope this brief glimpse into the concept of mental health promotion within forensic and correctional environments will challenge nurses to explore creative ways in which a mental health agenda can be formulated and actualized in practice.     

There is No Place Like Home: The Body as the Scene of the Crime in Sexual Assault Intervention

ABSTRACT

“The body is the scene of the crime,” is an oft-repeated phrase among nurses conducting sexual assault forensic examinations. This instruction reminds nurses that the object under scrutiny, the sexually violated body, is the location and source of establishing legal evidence. The nurses' interest lies in recovering evidentiary materials towards deriving a future juridical truth and providing a means for remedy or restitution. The constitution of truth obscures how the subject comes to be at home and dwell in a world where rape occurs. This article argues that regarding the body as a crime scene is more than a rhetorical or pedagogical move made by forensic practitioners. Rather, forensic examination is constituted through rigorous and meticulous techniques that scrutinize the body of the sexually violated subject in such a way that the harming and healing capacities of the domestic are disarticulated from one another. What is at stake is the state's reliance on a notion of the domestic as a sphere to which one might return and heal, even in instances where the domestic itself is the source or site of injury, such as incest and domestic violence.     

Working with Dave. Application of Peplau's interpersonal nursing theory in the correctional environment.

Achieving therapeutic relationships with forensic patients is dependent upon nurses' awareness of personal needs, reactions to the patient, recognition of their participation in the pattern, the effects of this participation on others, and the changes they needed to make. Nurses have more extensive contact with the forensic patients than other health care professionals. Consequently, the potential exists for nurses--through interpersonal relationship--to have the greatest therapeutic impact or to engage in patterns that replicate pathology-producing situations (Peplau, 1978). The goal is not that nurses be perfect, but that they be aware of imperfections and capable of exploring them.     

Teaching social workers to use psychological assessment data

Psychological assessments of children and parents are frequently used by social service caseworkers when making case planning decisions. Often, however, the two disciplines--psychology and social work--have difficulty collaborating in and coordinating their respective work. Caseworkers may lack formal training in how to understand and use psychological reports. Psychologists may lack formal training in forensic assessment and in understanding the constraints of the social service and child welfare systems. This article describes how caseworkers may become more sophisticated consumers of psychological assessments, and how collaborative relationships between evaluating psychologists and caseworkers can be fostered.     

Assessments of patients with a 5-category or a 3-category practical classification system: validaty and practicality

In order to implement preventive programs to prevent back pain in nurses, assessments of the degree of passivity and mobility of patients is imperative. After all, the load in health care ergonomics, is often the patient. The degree of cooperation or resistance determines the load on the back for the nurses and the necessity of the use of lifting devices like patient lifters or sliding sheets. These assessments must be done in both a practical and a reliable way. For this purpose a 3-category and a 5- category system to assess the degree of patient mobility and passivity was developed and tested. The results are presented on the poster.     

Outcry Consistency and Prosecutorial Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

This study examines the correlation between the consistency in a child’s sexual abuse outcry and the prosecutorial decision to accept or reject cases of child sexual abuse. Case-specific information was obtained from one Texas Children’s Advocacy Center on all cases from 2010 to 2013. After the needed deletion, the total number of cases included in the analysis was 309. An outcry was defined as a sexual abuse disclosure. Consistency was measured at both the forensic interview and the sexual assault exam. Logistic regression was used to evaluate whether a correlation existed between disclosure and prosecutorial decisions. Disclosure was statistically significant. Partial disclosure (disclosure at one point in time and denial at another) versus full disclosure (disclosure at two points in time) had a statistically significant odds ratio of 4.801. Implications are discussed, specifically, how the different disciplines involved in child protection should take advantage of the expertise of both forensic interviewers and forensic nurses to inform their decisions.     

Developing a strategy map for forensic accounting with fraud risk management: An integrated balanced scorecard-based decision model

Corporate fraud risk management strategy has increasingly become a sustainable business development goal. Recent reforms in forensic accounting technology for corporate fraud risk management globally have opened up new avenues for corporate governance and internal control mechanism implementation. This study thus presents an integrated methodology for forensic accounting implementation to improve the identification of the strategy map relationship between the Balanced Scorecard (BSC)-based perspective and criteria, by combining multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) with the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) techniques. The results have implications for corporate decision-makers to effectively fulfil corporate governance quality assurance and anti-fraud through a forensic accounting strategy map illustration. From the evaluation and planning perspective, the in-depth analysis of strategy map is useful to obtain an interrelationship that takes as its starting point the practice professions of the decision maker to improve existing strategy alternatives and focus on the valuable strategy paths. In the evaluation planning application, a strategy map of forensic accounting presents the knowledge regarding key indicators’ priorities to achieve satisfactory strategy planning and to practice forensic accounting development linked to fraud risk management in Taiwan.     

Psychometric properties of the “parent-child relationship inventory” (PCRI) in a portuguese forensic sample

In Portugal, there is a gap regarding psychological tests validated for forensic contexts, particularly those related to child custody issues. The Parent–Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) is one of the most used instruments in child custody contexts. This study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of PCRI in a Portuguese forensic sample. PCRI factorial structure and psychometric properties were analyzed in a sample of 144 parents involved in child custody assessments. The questionnaire showed good internal consistency, except for the parental support, autonomy, and role orientation scales. It also showed good discriminant capacity. The confirmatory factor analysis did not replicate the 7-factor model proposed by Gerard. The results were discussed based on the use of PCRI in the context of child custody assessment.     

Managing Epistemic Risk in Forensic Science: Sociological Aspects and Issues

The last decades have seen a notable increase in the use of scientific evidence in criminal investigation, a development which has captured the imagination of the media, publics and policymakers alike. Yet behind the authoritative image of forensic science lies a highly fluid and indeterminate landscape which invites sociological interest. In what follows, I aim to provide a sense of why it holds appeal to sociology, and to also outline a more updated research agenda in the light of continuing developments and deliberation within both sociological and forensic scientific circles. This renewed agenda revolves around the topic of risk. I outline recent developments which represent new approaches to the problem of epistemic risk in forensic science. With reference to a specific example (the ‘Case Assessment and Interpretation’ method of evidence assessment), I argue for the importance of studying risk-aware practices in forensic investigation, and how these help to reveal further how forensic science can be regarded as a complicated, heterogeneous and highly socialised human activity, in stark contrast to the immutable and technologically sophisticated image often promulgated in popular accounts.     

Relational ethics in forensic psychiatric settings

1. The pressure of the competing demands of custody and caring shapes the moral climate of forensic settings. 2. A relational approach to health care ethics, requiring the opening of dialogue, consideration of multiple perspectives, and attention to context, can guide nurses as they strive to engage and respect even their most estranged patients. 3. The core elements of relational ethics include mutual respect, engagement, and attention to the environment.     

The role of the medical provider in the evaluation of sexually abused children and adolescents

It was only 30 years ago that the medical community began to develop an increased awareness of child sexual abuse, and the role of the medical provider in the evaluation of sexually abused children has evolved significantly. As clinicians worldwide develop a greater understanding of the impact of the sexual abuse evaluation on the child, the roles of the physician and nurse have changed. In the United States, current practice often uses a multidisciplinary assessment involving skilled forensic interviewing of the child and a medical examination done by a medical provider with specialized training in sexual abuse. In order to minimize child interviews, these assessments are frequently held in settings such as child advocacy centers, where forensic interviewers and medical clinicians, child protective service workers, and police and district attorneys can work jointly to address the legal and protective issues in a coordinated fashion.     

Forensic Patients and Forensic Mental Health in Victoria: Legal Context,Clinical Pathways,and Practice Challenges

Forensic mental health services in Australia have evolved and developed considerably over the past two decades. To clinicians unfamiliar with them, the contemporary practice environments in which professionals deliver specialised forensic mental health services and the legislation governing offenders with a mental illness can appear extremely complex. This article outlines the legislation applying to individuals found not guilty of a serious offence on the grounds of mental impairment in the State of Victoria, describes the characteristics of the forensic patient population, and delineates the clinical pathway forensic patients typically take, using an illustrative case example. The competencies and attributes required by forensic practitioners are highlighted, along with the clinical challenges they face, including the inherent need to address risk in a service that has become recovery-focused in orientation. A central theme of the discussion is how social workers adapt their practice within these highly regulated settings to effectively meet forensic patients' needs.