Search

Although academic skills, conceptualised as writing and critical thinking, are a vital part of university studies, research indicates that many students leave without having mastered these skills effectively. This research also reflects on nursing students. Nursing could also be said to be hampered by a number of complex educational challenges that are likely to impact on the academic socialisation process in general. These challenges include being a relatively 'young' academic discipline, the 'theory-practice' divide, a knowledge bed lying on a complex intersection of two 'antithetical sciences' and, at least in the Scandinavian countries, an increasing number of nurse educators with a PhD in nursing science but with limited time to develop their own teaching skills. In combination, these challenges have the potential to act as stumbling blocks, both from a teaching and learning perspective. I would suggest that a departure in teaching from theoretical educational models, such as Lea and Street's 'academic literacies model,' including skills, socialisation and academic literacy models simultaneously, could be one of several ways forward to create a learning environment that takes these issues into account., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Despite a growing interest in evidence-based practice (EBP), the implementation into clinical practice of knowledge derived from research has proved to be a cumbersome process. Additionally, the literature seems to present a fragmented picture with research mainly focusing on a few factors of possible importance, among which leadership appears to be one of the more important. Thus, this study aimed to systematically review the literature regarding leadership and its possible influence on the process of implementing EBP., Approach: A literature review was conducted. Electronic database searches were conducted to identify studies on leadership, administrators, managers, implementation, evidence-based and nursing. The search identified 43 potentially relevant papers, of which 36 were excluded after an appraisal was performed by two independent reviewers. Results were extracted and synthesised into a narrative text., Findings: Seven papers were included in the literature review. The findings can be divided into three major areas: (1) characteristics of the leader, (2) characteristics of the organisation and (3) characteristics of the culture. Our findings indicate that leadership is vital for the process of implementing EBP in nursing and also highlights the possible importance of the organisation and the culture in which the leader operates. These factors together with their characteristics were interpreted to be intrinsic in the creation of a nursing milieu that is open and responsive to the implementation of EBP., Conclusions: Although there seems to be scholarly agreement that leadership is a vital part of the process of implementing EBP, more rigorous research is needed concerning the possible role of the leader. Our findings also indicate that leadership cannot be studied in isolation or without being clearly defined., (Copyright ©2011 Sigma Theta Tau International.)

Background: Pain is one of the most frequent problems among patients diagnosed with cancer. Despite the availability of effective pharmacological treatments, this group of patients often receives less than optimal treatment. Research into nurses' pain management highlights certain factors, such as lack of knowledge and attitudes and inadequate procedures for systematic pain assessment, as common barriers to effective pain management. However, educational interventions targeting nurses' pain management have shown promise. As cancer-related pain is also known to have a negative effect on vital aspects of the patient's life, as well as being commonly associated with problems such as sleep, fatigue, depression and anxiety, further development of knowledge within this area is warranted., Methods/design: A quasi-experimental study design will be used to investigate whether the implementation of guidelines for systematic daily pain assessments following a theory-based educational intervention will result in an improvement in knowledge and attitude among nurses. A further aim is to investigate whether the intervention that targets nurses' behaviour will improve hospital patients' perception of pain. Data regarding nurses' knowledge and attitudes to pain (primary outcome), patient perception regarding pain (secondary outcome), together with socio-demographic variables, will be collected at baseline and at four weeks and 12 weeks following the intervention., Discussion: Nursing care is nowadays acknowledged as an increasingly complicated activity and "nursing complexity is such that it can be seen as the quintessential complex intervention." To be able to change and improve clinical practice thus requires multiple points of attack appropriate to meet complex challenges. Consequently, we expect the theory-based intervention used in our quasi-experimental study to improve care as well as quality of life for this group of patients and we also envisage that evidence-based guidelines targeting this patient group's pain will be implemented more widely., Trial Registration Number: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01313234.

Introduction: Worldwide, health systems are improving access to empirically supported psychological therapies for anxiety and depression. Evaluations of this effort are limited by the cross sectional nature of studies, short implementation periods, poor data completeness rates and lack of clinically significant and reliable change metrics., Objective: Assess the impact of implementing stepped care empirically supported psychological therapies by measuring the prospective outcomes of patients referred over a two year period to one Improving Access to Psychological Therapies service in the UK., Method: We collected demographic, therapeutic and outcome data on depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) from 7859 consecutive patients for 24 months between 1st July 2006 and 31st August 2008, following up these patients for a further one year., Results: 4183 patients (53%) received two or more treatment sessions. Uncontrolled effect size for depression was 1.07 (95% CI: 0.88 to 1.29) and for anxiety was 1.04 (0.88 to 1.23). 55.4% of treated patients met reliable improvement or reliable and clinically significant change criteria for depression, 54.7% for anxiety. Patients received a mean of 5.5 sessions over 3.5h, mainly low-intensity CBT and phone based case management. Attrition was high with 47% of referrals either not attending for an assessment or receiving an assessment only., Conclusions: Recovery rates for patients receiving stepped care empirically supported treatments for anxiety and depression in routine practice are 40 to 46%. Only half of all patients referred go on to receive treatment. Further work is needed to improve routine engagement of patients with anxiety and depression., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background and Aims: Knowledge about Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in advanced age is sparse. This study investigated to what extent mobility factors explained older people's HRQoL when age, gender and functional ability (ADL) were controlled for., Methods: Subjects were 1128 people aged 60-96 participating in a Swedish longitudinal multi-center cohort study. Besides descriptive and correlation statistics, a three-tier multiple logistic regression analysis was performed, which included the ADL scale, mobility tests and items, with physical and mental HRQoL as outcome variables., Results: In the models containing the control variables, functional ability was found to be associated with both physical and mental HRQoL. In the models including both functional ability and mobility factors, the importance of functional ability remained for mental but not for physical HRQoL. The mobility factors were found to have a stronger negative influence on HRQoL, i.e., physical and mental, than functional ability in itself., Conclusions: For optimal identification of various types of disabilities and their impact on older people's HRQoL, the ADL scale should be used together with more targetspecific tests of disabilities. However, in certain situations, it appears that one mobility factor alone - the ability to walk - has the capacity to pick up changes in both physical and mental HRQoL. Thus, it is important that healthcare professionals should focus activities toward maintaining older people's mobility as a means of enhancing their HRQoL.

Objectives: To understand the extent to which the assistant practitioner role is described as 'assistive' in formal job descriptions and analyse whether the term 'assistive' has been stretched to encompass more 'substitutive' or 'autonomous' characteristics., Methods: Sixteen AP job descriptions representing all clinical divisions across one UK acute NHS Hospital Trust were both macro- and micro-analysed for broad similarities and differences in line with Hammersley and Atkinson's analytical framework. The analysis specifically focused on how clinical tasks were related to clinical responsibility, from this the job descriptors were then indexed as belonging to one of five discrete categories., Results: Our analysis revealed the following categories: fully assistive (n=1), supportive/assistive (n=7), supportive/substitutive (n=4), substitutive/autonomous (n=3) and fully autonomous (n=1). From this, a number of anomalies manifest in the form of divergent organisational expectations regarding the AP role., Conclusions: This study highlights a series of tensions extant between policy vision and implementation of the AP role in practice. Introduction of new healthcare roles requires compromise and negotiation, to shape and define what social space incumbents of these and existing roles will occupy. However the way in which new roles are defined will determine how they become embraced and embedded within future healthcare services.

Psychological and social factors have been shown, separately, to predict outcome in individuals with chronic low back pain. Few previous studies, however, have integrated both psychological and social factors, using prospective study of clinic populations of low back pain patients, to identify which are the most important targets for treatment. One hundred and eight patients with chronic low back pain, newly referred to an orthopaedic outpatient clinic, completed assessments of demographic characteristics, details of back pain, measures of anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS), fearful beliefs about pain (Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire), social stresses (Life Events and Difficulties Schedule) and physical aspects of health-related quality of life [SF-36 Physical Component summary Score scale (PCS)]. Six months later subjects completed the SF-36 PCS and the number of healthcare contacts during follow-up was recorded. Independent predictors of SF-36 PCS at 6-month follow-up were duration of pain [(standardised regression coefficient (beta)=-0.18, p=0.04), HADS score (beta)=-0.27, p=0.003] and back pain related social difficulties (beta=-0.42, p<0.0005). Number of healthcare contacts over the 6 months ranged from 1 to 29, and was independently predicted by perceived cause of pain [Incident Rate Ratio (IRR)=1.46, p=0.03], Fear Avoidance Beliefs about work (IRR=1.02, p=0.009) and back pain related social difficulties (IRR=1.16, p=0.03). To conclude, anxiety, depression, fear avoidance beliefs relating to work and back pain related stresses predict impairment in subsequent physical health-related quality of life and number of healthcare contacts. Interventions targeting these psychosocial variables in clinic patients may lead to improved quality of life and healthcare costs.

Public health policies in most European countries are concerned with how to keep older people living independently with a qualitatively good life in the community as long as possible. However, knowledge about what may characterise those seemingly 'healthy' older people is sparse. The aim of the study was to investigate the characteristics of a sample of people (75+) reporting various degrees of Quality of Life (QoL) with respect to QoL in different areas, as well as self-rated health, health problems, social support, everyday activities and sense of coherence. A postal questionnaire was sent out in spring 2001 to a randomly selected population-based sample (n= 600) in the southern parts of Sweden. A two-step cluster analysis was performed (n= 385, mean age 84.6, SD = 5.7) with 'present QoL' as clustering attribute. Three groups were disclosed, classified as high, intermediate and low present QoL, of which 33.8% could be regarded being at risk of low QoL. Those with low present QoL (18.4%) were the oldest and most vulnerable, a majority were women with 'poor or bad' self-rated health, high frequencies of health problems, low total QoL, low social support and sense of coherence and less physically active. Those with high present QoL (47.8%) reported more 'excellent or good' self-rated health, physical activity, satisfactory social support and higher sense of coherence and total QoL than the other two groups. Those with intermediate present QoL (33.8%) had more of 'poor or bad' self-rated health, more health problems were less physically active, had lower total QoL and sense of coherence, and less social support than those with high present QoL. The sample seemed to reflect the ageing process in that the respondents were at different stages of ageing. However, the fact that the level of social support, sense of coherence and self-rated health followed the same curve as QoL may indicate that some are more vulnerable to low present QoL given the same health and these should be targeted in preventive programmes since they report low QoL.

Objective: To describe and compare self-reported health complaints, overall and health-related quality of life and to investigate how health complaints, age, gender, marital status, living and dwelling conditions and socio-economy predicted overall and health-related quality of life., Data and Method: A sample of 469 persons (aged 75-99) responded to a postal questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine possible predictors., Result: Self-reported health complaints such as pain, fatigue and mobility impairment significantly predicted low overall and health-related quality life. Women had significantly lower overall and health-related quality of life than men, and a significantly higher degree of self-reported health complaints. The regression models had more similarities than differences, implying that the overall quality of life instrument were sensitive to physical influences only supposed to be detected by health-related quality of life instruments. Several of the health complaints predicting low quality of life are amenable for being relieved by nursing care. In the care of older people nurses need to assess for several health complaints simultaneously and be aware of their possible interaction when outlining interventions. Nurses are able to facilitate early detection of health complaints negatively affecting quality of life by implementing more pro-active preventive work as well as a higher degree of thorough and systematic assessments. It also seems important to consider that older woman's and men's needs for high quality of life may differ.