Niitsu Represents UWB at National Conference
Kosuke Niitsu, Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing & Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell (UW Bothell), presented a poster at the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) Annual Conference on October 21 in Long Beach, CA. His former Research Assistant, Emily Tuy, who has recently graduated from UW Bothell with her bachelor’s degree in Health Studies and Community Psychology, was a co-author. They titled their poster presentation, Resilience through Virtual Mindfulness: Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Post-Survey Feedback. Niitsu and his research team delivered a mindfulness-based intervention for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at UW Bothell to cope with stress and challenges better during the COVID-19 pandemic. Niitsu and Tuy analyzed the post-survey feedback from the research participants through qualitative analysis and identified themes regarding what went well and how the intervention can be improved. Many conference attendees, including Dr. Kerry Peterson, Director of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (see the photo), visited their poster to ask questions and learn more about their research and UW Bothell.
Niitsu also presented another poster titled, Efforts to Advance the Mental Health Nursing Specialty through Engagement in Quality Improvement (QI), Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), and Research. He was a co-author with other psychiatric mental health nurse scientists, including:
- Dr. Brandy Mechling at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (lead author)
- Dr. Nadia A. Charania at the University of Michigan
- Dr. Olimpia Paun at the Rush University, and
- Dr. Nancy Ahern at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
In this presentation, they explained similarities and differences between QI, EBP, and Research in terms of purpose, process, end-product, and practice. They also described how to optimize collaboration among psychiatric mental health nurses in different roles with regards to QI, EBP, and Research.
Niitsu has been serving on the APNA Research & Scholarship Council, and this poster presentation is one of their products. Additionally, they have recently published an article titled, “Research Priorities in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: Funding Availability, Recently Published Work, and Future Directions for Advancing Our Science”.
“Presenting at the national conference has given me a great opportunity to talk about who we are and what we do at UW Bothell”, Niitsu said. “It has been such a pleasure for me to tell the national and international audiences how we have been supporting mental health and well-being in our students and to represent UW Bothell”.