How clinical nurse and midwifery consultants optimise patient care in a tertiary referral hospital

Experiences from leading parental education groups: Perceived difficulties and rewards as an indication of skill acquisition

Developing skills in a professional setting is linked to practical experience. The relationship between experience and acquisition of skills can be seen as a transition from novice to expert. In a nursing setting, this has been studied using the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. The aim was to investigate how experience influences midwives' and child healthcare nurses' views of difficulties and rewards in working with parental education groups. The study has a cross-sectional design with a mixed methods approach. A total of 437 midwives and child healthcare nurses answered a web-based survey. First, a qualitative analysis was carried out, and then patterns of experience were analysed. The results showed that less experience as a leader corresponds to a greater focus on one's own role and on personal benefits from working with parents, but not on the specific context of the group. With experience, leaders had a greater focus on the group itself and rewards of making it function well. Not being able to take the current group and the specific context into account when working as a leader reduces possibilities of achieving a well-functioning group and the goals of the parental education.

Improving Care Provision to Older Adults with Dual Diagnosis: Recommendations from a Mixed-Methods Study

Older adults with dual diagnosis remain an under-diagnosed population in mental health services, with complex needs and high rates of medical comorbidity. Dual diagnosis is a significant challenge to contemporary mental health services, with recognition of the increased rate of relapse and costs of care of poorly managed dual diagnosis identified through comprehensive research. Unfortunately, the research attention paid to those with dual diagnosis in younger age groups has not been replicated in the older adult cohort, with few studies specifically exploring the treatment needs of these individuals. Of the studies that do exist, many identify poor screening and assessment, clinician frustration and a lack of cohesive treatment for co-occurring alcohol and other drug use disorders for older adults. We draw from a mixed methods exploratory study conducted in an inner Melbourne community older adult mental health service providing care to consumers with dual diagnosis to formulate recommendations to improve the care provision to this cohort. We discuss changes to the way older adult mental health services operate that are essential to improve the care and response to consumers presenting with dual diagnosis. Ultimately, we aim to discuss how older adult mental health services can improve to provide timely, responsive care to those with dual diagnosis.

Establishing trustworthiness and authenticity in qualitative pharmacy research

Spurred by the value it can add, the use of qualitative research methods has been steadily growing by social pharmacy researchers around the globe, either separately or as part of mixed methods research projects. Given this increase, it is important to provide guidance to assist researchers in ensuring quality when employing such methods. This commentary addresses both theoretical fundamentals as well as practical aspects of establishing quality in qualitative social pharmacy research. More specifically, it provides an explanation of each of the criteria of trustworthiness proposed by Lincoln and Guba (credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability) and different techniques used in establishing them. It also provides a brief overview of authenticity, a more recent and less widely used set of criteria that involve demonstrating fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, and tactical authenticity. For each of these terms, the commentary provides a definition, how it applies to social pharmacy research, and guidance on when and how to use them. These are accompanied by examples from the pharmacy literature where the criteria have been used. The commentary ends by providing a summary of competing viewpoints of establishing quality in the published literature while inviting the reader to reflect on how the presented criteria would apply to different qualitative research projects.

How do nurse consultant job characteristics impact on job satisfaction? An Australian quantitative study

Background

There is a direct link between job satisfaction, nurses’ job performance and improved patient outcomes. Understanding what job characteristics influence job satisfaction is vital if health organizations are to optimize individual employee satisfaction and performance. This is particularly necessary in the Nurse Consultant role, which is a multifaceted role that has evolved to meet the dynamic and changing needs of health services. This study aims to examine how job characteristics influence Nurse Consultant job satisfaction and identify differences across metropolitan and rural contexts.

Methods

This paper presents quantitative findings that are part of a larger prospective cross sectional mixed method study. An online survey consisting of a variety of job characteristic factors was administered to all NCs working in a large Local Health District in New South Wales, Australia over an 8-week period in 2010. Descriptive analysis identified NC’s perceptions of job satisfaction and job characteristics in their current role and factor and regression analysis identified relationships between these factors.

Results

Job satisfaction was identified as high (mean 4.3) and is strongly correlated with job autonomy, role clarity, role conflict and job support. A high level of role clarity has a moderating effect on the relationship between job autonomy and job satisfaction.

Conclusions

Study findings inform how we prepare nurses for the NC role and how managers engage with and support NCs in their role taking into account context.

Understanding the factors that influence job satisfaction and role effectiveness gives managers valuable information to assist in positioning and supporting these roles to maximize effectiveness across integrated and contemporary models of health care delivery.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12912-017-0246-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.