Dr. Andrea Bostrom is APNA's Featured Member for March. See below for her story and impact on psychiatric mental health nursing!
When first I looked for a potential doctoral research project, I focused on the stigmatizing appearance of people with mental illness, both with and without medications. In the 1980s, movement disorders, specifically tardive dyskinesia (TD), were causes of this. I immersed myself in the literature and was able to work with a team developing and validating a new assessment tool (the Dyskinesia Identification System—Coldwater [DISCo] eventually the Dyskinesia Identification System: Condensed User Scale [DISCUS]) to evaluate TD. I believed at the time, and still do, that these instruments are far superior to the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) for ongoing assessment and monitoring of TD, even though the AIMS is widely used. The next step in this research process was to do a concurrent validity study using the DISCo/DISCUS with the AIMS. I was unable to generate interest in this study; I was unable to clarify why the AIMS should be replaced when it was already widely used in practice. Then, at the end of the 20th Century, the second-generation antipsychotics were touted as likely not to cause TD. The need to assess for TD was diminished. I pursued scholarship and research with other groups: a survey of psychiatric nurses in Michigan with the Psychiatric Nurses Council of the Michigan Nurses Association and a Kellogg grant supporting a consortium of nurse-managed health centers in Michigan. Surprisingly and ironically in 2021, with a new medication to manage TD, there is less certainty that the newer antipsychotics do not cause TD and more reason to monitor people receiving all types of antipsychotic drugs for this movement disorder. I am not certain what I am going to do with this fact, but my advice to others is: hold on to what engages you because everything old can become new again.
Two of Dr. Bostrom's publications that readers should check out are:
Bostrom, A.C. (1988). Assessment scales for tardive dyskinesia. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 26(6), 8-12.
Bostrom, A.C., & Walker, M.K. (1990). Validation of tardive dyskinesia as measured on the Dyskinesia Identification System—Coldwater. Nursing Research, 39, 274-279.
More information: SelectedWorks - Andrea Bostrom, PhD, PMHCNS-BC (bepress.com)
If you would like to be featured as a researcher or clinician, sign up here:
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Posted on behalf of Practice Research Integration and Member Engagement (PRIME) Workgroup, Research Council