UB nursing professor wins ASPAN journalism award for published research

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Carla Jungquist, PhD, associate professor in the University at Buffalo School of Nursing, received the 2019 Mary Hanna Memorial Journalism Award from the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses (ASPAN) for excellence in published nursing knowledge.

The award honors an author for published research that demonstrates originality, clarity, journalistic style, and relevance to anesthesia care, ambulatory surgery and pain management.

Jungquist was selected for her article, “Preventing Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression in the Hospitalized Patient with Obstructive Sleep Apnea,” which was published by the Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing in October 2018.

She received the award at the 2019 ASPAN National Conference in Nashville, Tennessee on May 6.

“It is a real honor to have my work acknowledged as important to clinical practice by a group of my peers and bedside nurses,” said Jungquist, who served as principal investigator on the research.

The study found that postsurgical opioid-induced respiratory depression, characterized by a decline in the ability to breathe, increases hospital stays by 55%, cost of care by 47% and 30-day readmissions by 36%, and causes a three-fold rise in inpatient mortality.

“The purpose of this article was to increase the knowledge of nurses about the early detection, prevention and management of perioperative opioid-induced respiratory depression in patients with obstructive sleep apnea,” said Jungquist, also the adult/gerontology interim program coordinator in the UB School of Nursing.

“Adverse events secondary to opioid-related respiratory depression can cost health care systems an average of $2.5 million per claim, and can be very upsetting to the nurse on duty at the time of the event.”

The investigators add that nursing interventions are essential to improving outcomes and reducing costs.

Jungquist is a family nurse practitioner with more than 30 years of clinical experience, including more than 10 years in diagnosing and treating patients with chronic pain conditions. Her research interests focus on the interaction of pain and sleep.

She is an expert in the delivery of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and has a clinical practice at the Thompson Health Sleep Disorders Center in Canandaigua, New York.

She also serves on the American Society for Pain Management Nursing’s expert consensus panel charged with writing clinical practice guidelines for monitoring patients at risk of opioid-induced respiratory depression.

Jungquist is a fellow of the American Academy of Nurses, and holds a doctorate in health practice research and a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Rochester, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the College at Brockport, SUNY.

Additional investigators on the award-winning paper include Elizabeth Card, nurse scientist and nursing research consultant at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Jean Charchaflieh, MD, DrPH, associate professor of anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine; Bhargavi Gali, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Mayo Clinic; and Meltem Yilmaz, MD, associate professor of anesthesiology in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.