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Aim and Objective: Explore the views and experiences of quality of care provided during a first postnatal visit from the perspectives of mothers and public health nurses. Background: Quality of nursing care is high on the policy agenda internationally, especially in the year of Nurse and Midwife. Public health nurses are acknowledged nationally and globally as essential health professionals supporting infants and parents. The first postnatal visit provided by the public health nurse is a complex intervention for mothers incorporating physical, social, educational and emotional support, and we know little about the quality of care provided. International evidence suggests a lack of consensus in setting priorities for this crucial visit. Design: Exploratory, qualitative design, utilising focus groups and interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Setting/Participants: Nineteen public health nurses from all four health service regions and five mothers from one health service region were interviewed to explore the quality of care provided during first postnatal visits. Methods: Adopting qualitative data collection methods for the study; five individual semi-structured interviews with mothers ascertained their experiences of care. Further, four focus groups with public health nurses explored their understanding of the quality of care provided to mothers. The data collection period was August 2015 to January 2016. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Mothers and public health nurses identified that public health nurses were crucial for providing support during the first postnatal visit as mothers required care and advice around physical, psychological and social wellbeing for themselves and their new infant. Discordant experiences of quality care and lack of standardisation of care practices emerged. Nurses identified relationship building, empowerment and health promotion as pivotal to the public health nurses' role. Mothers acknowledged the supportive and practical aspects of the care provided. Conclusion: This is the first Irish study combining nurses and mothers experiences, identifying care provided at the first postnatal visit, presenting the quality of care experienced. This visit is vital for relationship-building and empowering mothers' child-care and self-care abilities. The findings provide an insight into how quality of care is perceived by public health nurses and mothers. Experiences facilitate reflection and the development of quality improvements to ensure mothers and infants are adequately supported during the first postnatal visit.

Background: The current COVID 19 pandemic brings into sharp focus the global necessity of having sufficient numbers of nurses and the dire impacts of nursing shortages throughout health systems in many countries. In 2020 retaining skilled experienced nurses continues to be a major global challenge. The dominant and consistent concentration of workforce research to date has focused on attitudinal factors including job satisfaction and burnout and there is limited research on how organisational commitment in combination with job satisfaction and burnout may explain what keeps nurses in nursing. Objectives: To measure how organisational commitment in combination with job satisfaction and burnout relate to the intention of Registered General Nurses’ staying in nursing (ITSN). Design & Methods: A quantitative descriptive design using a cross-sectional survey was utilised. A national postal survey of a representative sample of registered general nurses employed within the Republic of Ireland (ROI) health services was undertaken in 2010. A number of established valid and reliable instruments were used to measure attitudinal factors and their relationship with intention to stay (ITSN). Data were analysed using IBM SPSS version 24.0 and descriptive, correlational and multiple regression analysis were undertaken. Results: A total of 756 registered nurses participated in this study. The strongest predictor of intention to stay in nursing was organisational commitment (β=0.32, p=.000) while burnout and job satisfaction had a significant relationship with ITSN. Conclusion: Results reveal the complex and multidimensional nature of ITSN with the majority of nurses having a strong intention to stay in nursing. Organisational commitment and low burnout represented predictors which are influential in nurses remaining in nursing throughout their career lifespan. These results remain relevant in 2020 particularly in light of the ongoing pandemic when retention and recruitment of skilled and experienced nurses to the workforce will be critical to the management of health care, considering the increased nurse vacancy rates in many countries and the evident lack of resolution of the issues raised from this study.

Objective: Clinical trials have long been considered the ‘gold standard’ of research generated evidence in health care. Patient recruitment is an important determinant in the success of the trials, yet little focus is placed on the decision making process of patients towards recruitment. Our objective was to identify the key factors pertaining to patient participation in clinical trials, to better understand the identified low participation rate of patients in one clinical research facility within Ireland. Design: Narrative literature review of studies focussing on factors which may act to facilitate or deter patient participation in clinical trials. Studies were identified from Medline, PubMed, Cochrane Library and CINAHL. Results: Sixty-one studies were included in the narrative review: Forty-eight of these papers focused specifically on the patient's perspective of participating in clinical trials. The remaining thirteen related to carers, family and health care professional perspectives of participation. The primary factor influencing participation in clinical trials amongst patients was related to personal factors and these were collectively associated with obtaining a form of personal gain through participation. Cancer was identified as the leading disease entity included in clinical trials followed by HIV and cardiovascular disease. Conclusion: The vast majority of literature relating to participation in clinical trials emanates predominantly from high income countries, with 63% originating from the USA. No studies for inclusion in this review were identified from low income or developing countries and therefore limits the generalizability of the influencing factors.