Search

Rural Australian families report lower access to specialist early parenting services than urban families. To address the early parenting needs of rural families with children aged 0–3, a novel specialist-nursing early parenting service, Tresillian To You, was implemented for five rural communities in New South Wales, Australia. This study aimed to investigate the initial impact and reach of the service. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 36 parents who attended the service. Of these, 34 completed structured pre-and-post intervention phone interviews. Additional data were collected from the parent and child health record. Data were imported into SPSS for descriptive and inferential data analysis. All parent participants were mothers, with a mean age of 31.5 (SD 4.582). Sleep and settling was the primary reason for referral (78%, n = 28). Following service engagement, statistically significant improvements were seen in parent adjustment (95% CI = −1.71, −0.52, p <.001), parent comprehensibility (95% CI = −1.81, −0.42, p =.003), and parent perception of child sleep (95% CI = 16.3, 34.9, p <.001). Families from non-target communities (n = 15) reported a higher level of need at baseline, compared with families from target rural communities (n = 21). Following service engagement, a similar level of benefit was reported between both groups. Preliminary evidence suggests that this new service may be an effective method of providing specialist early parenting intervention for families in rural communities. The provision of effective nurse-led specialist early child and family interventions may help to alleviate early parenting difficulty for rural families, leading to improvements in child and family outcomes. • Rural children are at risk of poorer health and developmental outcomes. • Early parenting is considered a key modifiable factor impacting child development. • A novel mobile service provides promising early parenting support to rural families. • Engaging with early parenting support may improve child and family outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally there are both current and looming mental health workforce shortages. Mental health nurses who have received specialist education are a vital component to respond to these challenges. Aim: This qualitative study aimed to better understand the efficacy and product quality of mental health nurse workforce preparation through pre-registration nurse education in Australia. Method: To meet this aim 19 educators representing 13 different universities were qualitatively interviewed. Results: Thematic analysis found four themes (1) Graduates are under-prepared for safe mental health nurse practice; (2) Essential mental health nurse capabilities are missing in graduates; (3) Barriers to graduate preparation, and (4) Negative impacts of inadequate graduate preparation. Discussion: Findings from this study suggest future workforce shortages would be best addressed through direct undergraduate entry for mental health nursing Implications for Practice: All nurse undergraduate training needs significantly enhanced mental health theory and placement within the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible summary: What Is Known on the Subject?: Service user involvement in mental health nursing education is beneficial in terms of attitudinal change to reduce stigma, clinical skill development and enhancing understandings of recovery‐oriented practice.Service users as experts by experience have not been embedded within pre‐registration nursing programs. Consequently, they remain limited in number, ad hoc and frequently tokenistic.Nurse academics responsible for the design and delivery of pre‐registration mental health nursing curricula have a potentially important role in facilitating expert by experience involvement in mental health nursing education. What this Paper Adds to Existing Knowledge: Nurse academics teaching mental health nursing have generally favourable views about the importance of expert by experience involvement.Nurse academics experience significant barriers in supporting the implementation of academic positions for experts by experience, particularly in obtaining funding.The experts by experience could contribute to mental health nursing education does not appear to be clearly understood by nurse academics. What Are the Implications for Practice?: Mental health services aspire to adopt a recovery‐oriented approach to practice. Involving experts by experience in mental health nursing education can facilitate increased understanding and appreciation of recovery‐oriented practice.Nurse academics could play an important role in supporting the implementation of experts by experience positions in nursing academia. To do so, they require an understanding of the benefits of EBE involvement in academia and the barriers that can be encountered when attempting to facilitate the implementation of such positions.Experts by experience contribute unique expertise, essential to the development of quality mental health services. Conveying this expertise through the educating the future nursing workforce in mental health is essential. Introduction: Involving service users in mental health nursing education is ad hoc and minimal, despite growing evidence of its benefits. Insights and experiences of nurse academics teaching mental health to pre‐registration students have been underrepresented in the research to date. Aim: To seek insights and experiences of nurse academics involved in designing and delivering pre‐registration mental health nursing education in Australian universities regarding involving service users in mental health nursing education. Methods: A descriptive qualitative study involving 19 nurse academics from 13 Australian universities, involved in pre‐registration mental health nursing education. Data were analysed thematically. Results: Participants reported minimal service user involvement. Most sought an increase and identified barriers. Data analysis resulted in five identified themes: (1) value‐rich, (2) resource‐poor, (3) imperfect processes, (4) 'part, but not all' and (5) unrecognised worth. Conclusions: Increasing meaningful involvement of service‐users in mental health nursing education requires support and investment from multiple stakeholders. Nurse academics are crucial stakeholders in understanding the unique expertise service users bring. Implications for Practice: Service users being central to all aspects of mental health services requires their active participation in the education of health professionals. Nurse academics have an important role in realising this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma‐informed care has emerged as a prominent strategy to eliminate coercive practices and improve experiences of care in mental health settings, with advocacy from international bodies for mental health reform. Despite this, there remains a significant gap in research understanding the integration of trauma‐informed care in mental health nursing practice, particularly when applied to the acute mental health or hospital‐based setting. The study aimed to explore the experiences of mental health nurses employed in acute hospital‐based settings from a trauma‐informed care perspective. The study design was qualitative, using a phenomenological approach to research. A total of 29 nurses employed in acute mental health or hospital‐based environments participated. Three over‐arching themes were uncovered: 'Embodied Awareness': highlighting mental health nursing emotional capabilities are deeply rooted in bodily awareness. 'Navigating Safety': signifying spatial elements of fear and how some mental health nurses' resort to coercive or restrictive practices for self‐preservation. 'Caring Amidst Uncertainty': revealing the relational influences of security guards in mental health nursing. The study reveals a significant gap in trauma‐informed care implementation when applied to the context of mental health nursing practice in this setting. Limited evidence on trauma‐informed care for mental health nurses, coupled with inadequate workforce preparation and challenging work environments, hinder the effective integration of it. To genuinely embed TIC in acute mental health settings, the study emphasises the need for a thorough exploration of what this entails for mental health nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Children living in rural, regional and remote locations experience challenges to receiving services for mental illness and challenging behaviours. Additionally, there is a lack of clarity about the workforce characteristics to address the needs of this population. Objective: To scope the literature on the rural, regional and remote child mental health and behavioural workforce and identify barriers and enabling mechanisms to mental health service provision. Design: A scoping review utilising the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. A database search was undertaken using Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Scopus to identify papers published 2010–2023. Research articles reporting data on mental health workforce characteristics for children aged under 12 years, in rural, regional or remote locations were reviewed for inclusion. Findings: Seven hundred and fifty‐four papers were imported into Covidence with 22 studies being retained. Retained studies confirmed that providing services to meet the needs of children's mental health is an international challenge. Discussion: The thematic analysis of the review findings highlighted four workforce strategies to potentially mitigate some of these challenges. These were: (1) The use of telehealth for clinical services and workforce upskilling; (2) Role shifting where non mental health professionals assumed mental health workforce roles; (3) Service structure strategies, and (4) Indigenous and rural cultural factors. Conclusion: A range of potential strategies exists to better meet the needs of children with mental health and behavioural issues. Adapting these to specific community contexts through co‐design and production may enhance their efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent and child wellbeing are reciprocal. Attentive, responsive parenting, is contingent on parental wellbeing. Insights into mechanisms of early parenting interventions that seek to improve parent and child outcomes are needed. This scoping review aimed to systematically map research reporting on parenting interventions for parents experiencing early parenting difficulty. A secondary aim was to synthesise existing research using a realist lens, to provide context, mechanism and outcome insights into elements of early parenting interventions. A systematic search was conducted across six databases within the publication period of 2010–2020, to identify evidence on interventions targeting early parenting difficulty. Using pre-determined inclusion criteria, fifteen studies were selected for review. Deductive reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: conceptual disparities in early parenting difficulty, early parenting intervention diversity and an absence of theory to explain interventions or outcomes. Neither early parenting difficulty nor the theoretical basis for early parenting interventions were well defined. Identification of contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of early parenting interventions is a unique contribution of this study. These insights may be used to inform planning, implementation and evaluation activities to promote context-focused, early parenting interventions targeting a critical phase of child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first global climatology of monsoon low-pressure systems is presented here, based on the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Low-pressure systems are classified into three intensity categories and particular focus is given to systems in the category corresponding to a traditional definition of monsoon depressions. Vortex tracks are identified using an automated algorithm applied to the distributions of 850 hPa relative vorticity, sea-level pressure and surface wind speed for 1979-2012. Roughly two to three times as many monsoon low-pressure systems form in the Northern Hemisphere as in the Southern Hemisphere during local summer. The frequency of genesis typically peaks in local summer, but low-pressure systems form throughout the year in every monsoon region. Interannual variability is weak, with standard deviations of summer counts typically being below 10% of the long-term summer mean. Regional composites reveal that monsoon depressions in India, the western Pacific and northern Australia share a common structure, consisting of a warm-over-cold core and a top-heavy column of potential vorticity that extends from the surface to the upper troposphere. A separate class of monsoon low-pressure systems develops over dry regions of West Africa and western Australia, with a shallow composite structure having a warm core in the lower troposphere and cyclonic potential vorticity confined to a thin near-surface layer. Low-pressure systems in nearly all monsoon regions are estimated to account for a large fraction, from about 40% to more than 80%, of summer precipitation on the poleward edge of the climatological mean precipitation maxima.

Inadequate mental health nursing content in pre‐registration nursing curricula has been the topic of debate and concern since the introduction of comprehensive nursing education in Australia. Government‐initiated inquiries and the efforts of mental health professional organizations and leaders have not successfully addressed this problem. The aim of the current study was to garner the perspectives and experiences of mental health nurse academics regarding the adequacy of mental health content in producing graduates able to work effectively in mental health settings and identify barriers and enablers to implementing and sustaining sufficient mental health content in pre‐registration programs. A survey was distributed to mental health academics in Australian universities offering pre‐registration nursing degrees. In total, 44 complete responses were included in the analysis. The results demonstrated the following: Most participants considered the current mental health content, theory and clinical hours insufficient to prepare graduates for practice in mental health settings. They reported a scarcity of tenured mental health nurse academics to deliver content effectively. Most participants were dissatisfied with the comprehensive approach to nurse education and preferred a double degree (nursing and mental health nursing), or a direct entry mental health nursing program. These findings provide further evidence for the current crisis in mental health nursing education and highlight the need for urgent action. People accessing health services have the right to receive high‐quality care from appropriately qualified nurses. The inadequacy of mental health content in these programs effectively denies vulnerable people the standard of care and treatment they should be entitled to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interannual variability of monsoon precipitation is described in the context of a convective quasi-equilibrium framework. Using two reanalysis products and two global precipitation datasets, the authors examine linear relationships between seasonal anomalies of precipitation and subcloud equivalent potential temperature (θeb) local to six monsoon regions. This approach provides a single near-surface thermodynamically relevant variable over both land and ocean, extending previous studies of interannual monsoon variability that emphasized ocean surface temperatures. After removing the variability linearly associated with an index of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, positive monsoon precipitation anomalies are shown to be associated with enhanced θeb local to and slightly poleward of the climatological θeb maximum. The variations in continental θeb local to the monsoon precipitation maxima are mainly due to variations in subcloud specific humidity, with changes in subcloud temperature having the opposite sign. Motivated by the fact that some of these subcloud humidity anomalies occur over deserts poleward of monsoon regions, the relationship of 700-hPa flow with precipitation is examined, and enhanced precipitation in several regions is found to covary with the properties of shallow meridional circulations. The implications of these results for the understanding of monsoon interannual variability are discussed. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.