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Accessible summary: What is known on the subject?: Mental healthcare requires acceptance of suicide and flexible attitudes especially in relation to caring for people who have suicidal thoughts or who have attempted suicide. Nurse education programmes for student nurses can shape positively the attitudes of individual participants, yet limited research exists on what nursing students' attitudes currently are towards people who are suicidal. What this paper adds to existing knowledge?: This paper adds to the developing international comparative work that is providing a greater understanding of cultural perceptions of suicide amongst students. This paper along with existing literature highlights a potential relationship between certain religious belief systems and their potential to be protective against suicide. At the same time, such religious belief is more likely to be associated with more judgmental attitude towards suicidal behaviour. This paper using a validated research tool, devised by a research psychologist, scored for the first time, individual student attitudes towards caring for people that are suicidal, whilst establishing the overall differences between the two countries from which the data are collected. What are the implications for practice?: This paper offers potential explanations for differences in nursing students' attitudes between the UK and Turkey. Disparities under discussion include gender, type of education, culture and religion. This is an important discussion in the consideration of nurse education worldwide. It is recognized that students may come from a variety of different backgrounds, with varying personal and social attitudes to begin with; yet, there exists the potential to positively influence overall attitudes towards service users whilst learners are still within a training programme, consisting of education and practice experiences. The merits of a specialist mental health nurse training programme and its potential to impact more favourably on students attitudes deserve more attention and research. Abstract: Introduction: Suicide is a major public health issue internationally, and the impact of positive or negative attitudes amongst the mental health professional workforce warrants scrutiny. The study aimed to examine English and Turkish nursing students' attitudes towards people with suicidal behaviour. Method: This cross‐cultural study reports on attitudes of 240 nursing students towards suicide in Turkey and 82 nursing students in the UK. A reliable and valid 24 item “Attitudes towards Suicide Scale” and “Social Reactions to Suicidal Persons Scale” were used to measure attitudes. Results: The UK nursing students were found to display more accepting attitudes to suicide, and scored higher on acceptability of suicide, seeing suicide as a solution and open reporting and discussion of suicide subscales than their Turkish counterparts. Turkish nursing students scored higher on punishment after death and hiding suicidal behaviour subscales than the UK students. Turkish nursing students scored significantly higher on deterring subscale of reactions to a suicidal peer scale than the UK nursing students. Implications for practice: It is vital for nurse students to develop positive acceptance of suicide through education, reflection and clinical supervision to be more therapeutic towards suicidal patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims A discussion of recently discovered literature that reveals how after the Crimean War ended in 1856, Jamaican nurse, doctress and entrepreneur Mary Seacole travelled more widely and gained further international recognition than had previously been appreciated. Background New findings demonstrate that Seacole's international charitable and business activities were reported more widely than realised. Recently discovered literature uncovers her networking and strategic skills in various social milieus. A former Scutari nurse and 39 other women, offered their service to Seacole to nurse British soldiers in India. Newspapers also reported the medal she had been awarded from the Turkish government. Design Discussion paper. Data sources Digitized 19th-century newspaper reports, and 1857 Dutch and 1858 French translations of Seacole's autobiography and a recently discovered handwritten letter dated 1 October 1857 from Seacole to Sir Henry Storks, at the time Secretary for Military Correspondence at the War Office, London. Implications for nursing Awareness of the findings affords a more thorough understanding of the scope and diversity of nursing history. This can provide valuable role models for the 21st century generations of competent and self-confident healthcare professionals. The new evidence offers further testimony that Seacole can truly be considered as one such figurehead. Conclusions British and international primary sources reveal Mary Seacole as an historical and charismatic global phenomenon, more than had been previously realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

kwong e.w.-y., pang s.m.-c., choi p.-p. & wong t.k.-s. (2010) Influenza vaccine preference and uptake among older people in nine countries. Journal of Advanced Nursing 66(10), 2297–2308. Aim. This paper is a report of a study delineating factors that influence older people’s preferences and uptake of the influenza vaccine in nine countries. Background. Vaccination uptake for the aging population in many countries still remains below the World Health Organization recommended rate. Older people who perceive higher susceptibility to and severity of influenza, and more benefits from vaccination and action cues prompting vaccination, tend to accept the vaccine, but those with more perceived barriers to vaccination are less likely to accept it. Method. A total of 208 older people from China, Indonesia, Turkey, Korea, Greece, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria were recruited to 14 vaccinated and 12 unvaccinated focus groups. They shared their experiences of influenza, and influenza vaccination, and promotion of influenza vaccination in focus groups. The data were collected in 2007. Findings. We identified five themes and generated a hypothetical framework for in-depth understanding of vaccination behaviour among older people. Participants’ vaccine preferences were determined by their behavioural beliefs in vaccination, which were based on their probability calculation of susceptibility to and severity of influenza and vaccine effectiveness, and their utility calculation of vaccine, healthcare and social costs. Action cues prompting vaccination and vaccine access further affected the vaccine uptake of participants with vaccine preferences. Vaccination coverage was likely to be higher in the countries where normative beliefs in favour of vaccination had formed. Conclusion. The hypothetical framework can be used to guide healthcare providers in developing strategies to foster normative beliefs of older people in vaccination, provide effective action cues and promote vaccine access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]