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Background: There is a risk of malnutrition when older people are diagnosed with cancer, highlighting the need for nutritional assessments and appropriate management to be undertaken by healthcare professionals including nurses. The absence of a standardised assessment method and management of nutrition in older people creates a gap in clinical practice and warrants further research. Aim: The aim of this review was to explore the current nutritional assessment methods and evidencebased interventions for improving nutritional outcomes in older people with cancer. Methods: An integrative literature review was conducted using electronic databases. Papers were limited to those published in English between 2009 and 2021. Search terms included older adult, elder, geriatric, senior, cancer, nutrition, malnutrition, hospital, and inpatient across four databases: Embase, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Scopus. Using the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 303 articles were screened. A Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) (2018) was used for quality appraisal. Concept analysis explored themes across the included articles. Findings: The themes from the analysis of 10 primary research articles, which included 5,327 participants, were (i) types of nutritional assessment and (ii) management of older people with cancer. The main nutritional assessment scales used were the Mini Nutrition Assessment and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment. Conclusion: The completion of a comprehensive nutritional assessment by health professionals, including nurses, could facilitate early dietary intervention in older persons with cancer. This would enable supportive dietary advice and supplementation to improve health outcomes.

Background In Australia, alcohol use is accountable for 5.1% of the total burden of disease and injury along with being responsible for 24% of the burden as a result of chronic liver disease. There is a paucity of quality evidence-based programmes for alcohol use management and the chronic viral hepatitis population. Aims To evaluate the effectiveness of an alcohol brief intervention for ambulatory patients with chronic viral hepatitis C attending a hepatology clinic. Methods A randomised controlled trial determined the effectiveness of: a brief intervention and routine care (Group 1) compared to routine care only (no formalised intervention) (Group 2). Alcohol reduction is the primary outcome measure. Reduction in risky drinking and quality of life were also measured. Data was collected at three-time points, baseline prior to randomisation, four weeks and eight weeks. Findings Alcohol intake reduced in both groups at 4 weeks, with 57% (intervention) and 41% (control) having a 50% reduction in alcohol (p = 0.295). This reduction was maintained by both groups at 8 weeks with 53% (intervention) and 43% (control) (p = 0.536). The intervention group showed a greater reduction over time, but this was not statistically significant. Discussion Increasing nurse led models of care, such as nurse practitioners specialising in hepatology, could provide an effective response for managing people with chronic viral hepatitis C and alcohol misuse. Conclusion Assessing for alcohol use using the AUDIT C and TLFB_A and providing a brief intervention with routine care by the Nurse Practitioner, Hepatology is an acceptable and useful intervention to reduce alcohol consumption in this population.

Background Self-efficacy in nursing is the nurses' perception of their abilities to show caring orientations, attitudes, and behaviours and to develop caring relationships with patients. Self-efficacy is associated with years of experience, higher levels of job satisfaction and changes to nursing practices that conform with best practice. There is currently a paucity of evidence and no Australian studies were found examining the relationships between socio-demographic variables and self-efficacy in Australian nurses. Aim The aim of this study was to examine if relationships existed between the socio-demographic variables, years of experience, age, gender, marital status, level of education, years employed in the same workplace, employment status, geographical location, specialty area, health sector and Australian state and the perceived self-efficacy of Australian registered nurses. Research Design Cross-sectional survey of Australian registered nurses. Methods A stratified random sample of registered nurses was drawn from the database of a national industrial and professional organisation. The Caring Efficacy Scale (CES) was categorised into quartiles, and bivariate and multivariable relationships were examined using ordinal logistic regression. Results The proportion of nurses reporting low caring efficacy scores tended to decrease with years of experience and was lower in nurses who have been married. After adjustment in the final multivariable model, marital status and years of experience remained significantly related to caring efficacy ( p Conclusion A relationship exists between years of nursing experience, marital status and perceived self-efficacy among Australian registered nurses who belonged to an industrial and professional organisation. Targeted professional development programmes that support the improvement of perceived self-efficacy of all levels of nurses, might improve nurses' confidences and abilities to develop caring relationships with patients.

The results of the few studies found investigating relationships between sociodemographic variables and job satisfaction in nurses are mixed. Nevertheless some evidence exists which indicates that some socio-demographic variables are related to nurses' job satisfaction. Moreover reports indicate that job satisfaction is Linked to the retention of nurses. Relationships between socio-demographics and job satisfaction of Australian nurses are examined in the current study.To examine relationships between socio-demographic factors and job satisfaction and identify if these factors predicted job satisfaction Levels in Australian nurses.A cross sectional survey was conducted of 2000 Australian registered nurses who were at the time members of an industrial and professional organisation. The nurses were randomised and stratified according to gender and were asked to answer questions on a socio-demographic questionnaire developed by the researcher.The majority of respondents showed positive job satisfaction scores. Pearson's correlation coefficients (r) found the covariates age, years of experience and years in current job were all moderately to highly positively correlated with each other (all r0.40, p0.001), however there were no significant interactions between these covariates and Job Satisfaction. Multivariable analysis found significant positive relationships existed between job satisfaction, specialty area and health sector.Specialty area and health sector showed significant associations with job satisfaction in nurses. These variables should be considered by governments, nursing, organisational leaders and policy makers when developing future policies and strategies aimed at retention. These variables should be investigated further in relation to nursing job satisfaction.