I usually enjoy reading ANNA, but this edition was rather limited in content. Only two research articles deserve mentioning.

From the title, Nephrology nurse-patient relationships in the out-patient dialysis setting, this article could be expected to be a piece of qualitative research about both the nurse's and the patient's perspective of their relationship 1. However, the research focus is on the nurse. The researchers interviewed 22 nurses in dialysis units.

But the greatest limitation to this study is the use of a single unit in the Midwest of America and its satellite unit. No formal data is presented -- purely the propositions. And the authors do not give us the specific questions that were asked by the interviewer/researcher. Their inclusion would have been useful.

As a result, this piece of research has rather limited in usefulness for UK nurses.

The Continuing Education Section contains a good review of Goodpasture's Syndrome 2, covering the diagnosis, pathophysiology and management. There is a table provided with an overview of the differential diagnosis, but Goodpasture's is excluded. It would have been useful to include it here for clarity. And the article lacked any discussion on quality of life and social issues, which are very important for patients in this group owing to the age of those commonly affected.

The following article is a study of learning 3 among eight individuals who agreed to participate. However, three dialysis nurses helped with the identification and selection of the participants and, unfortunately, the researchers do not provide the raw data detailing the total number of patients who were asked. And there is some confusion between the aim of the study -- which was learning -- and the questions asked by the researcher -- which had nothing to do with learning. As a result, this piece of research has limitations in both selection criteria and significance within nephrology nursing.

Finally, the Journal Club provides a section entitled Keeping up with the latest abstracts in vascular access from the nephrology viewpoint. Though this material is from the last ASN, held in Toronto, Canada, last October, the author has identified what she considers to be the most useful out of all the abstracts published. The categories are:

		Monitoring Abstracts;
		Central Venous Catheter Abstracts;
		and Fistula and Grafts/Outcome Abstracts.

This is useful if your area of interest is dialysis access.

Remember that ANNA is available online at: www.annanurse.org