Nursing identity and patient-centredness in scholarly health services research: a computational text analysis of PubMed abstracts 1986-2013

The Current Contexts of Newly Graduated Nurses’ Competence: A Content Analysis

Producing and sustaining a competent nursing workforce is imperative to protect the public. Identifying current issues and trends in nursing competence can strengthen insights and provide direction for the future nursing workforce. A summative content analysis was performed; PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus were searched for content from the last ten years. A total of 3225 titles and abstracts regarding nursing competence were identified and analysed using the big-data analysis software Leximancer. Five themes were discovered from the analysis: (1) standardisation of nursing competencies with emerging competencies, (2) assessment competency levels, (3) graduates’ expectations and achievement, (4) safe and quality practice with teamwork, and (5) competency curriculum development. This found standardised nursing competencies, which suggests prioritising which core competencies should be focused on during education to produce competent generalist professional nurses, and employers could help nursing graduates improve their competence in specialised areas. This review also suggests that further education strategies should be developed to better prepare graduates for culturally safe practice to meet the needs of diverse minority populations and for informatics competency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Competence assessment methods must be extensively investigated to measure nursing competencies both longitudinally and cross-sectionally.

What does it mean to conduct participatory research with Indigenous peoples? A lexical review

BACKGROUND

To better understand and promote public health, participatory research with Indigenous peoples represents recommended practice, worldwide. However, due to the different ways such research is referred to, described, and used, it is unclear what might (and might not) warrant the term when collaborating with Indigenous peoples. As such, this article expands conceptual understandings of participatory research with Indigenous peoples, across timelines and regions.

METHOD

Following a systematic search of 29 academic databases in April 2018, a lexical analysis of the methods sections was conducted, which were sourced from 161 publications across 107 journals.

RESULTS

The active involvement of Indigenous peoples in research that is expressly participatory is limited across all project phases. This might be because the ways in which Indigenous peoples were involved throughout were not reported - however, it might also be because Indigenous peoples were not involved in all project phases. Furthermore, descriptions differ by study location and publication timeframe - notably, studies in the region of the Americas chiefly refer to pandemics, surveyors, and art; and those published in the last two decades have given primacy to artifacts of interest.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings from this corpus of data suggest participatory research with Indigenous peoples is not always described across different project phases; furthermore, it differs according to study location and publication timeframe. This offers considerable opportunity to further this important research area via alternative methodologies that award primacy to Indigenous expertise and agency.

Bibliometric mapping of intensive care nurses' wellbeing: development and application of the new iAnalysis model

BACKGROUND

Intensive care nurse wellbeing is essential to a healthy healthcare workforce. Enhanced wellbeing has widespread benefits for workers. Bibliometrics enables quantitative analysis of bourgeoning online data. Here, a new model is developed and applied to explore empirical knowledge underpinning wellbeing and intensive care nurse wellbeing in terms of size and impact, disciplinary reach, and semantics.

METHODS

Mixed methods bibliometric study. Firstly, a new model coined 'iAnalysis' was developed for the analysis of published data. Secondly, iAnalysis was applied in two studies to examine wellbeing and ICU nurse wellbeing. Study one explored data from a title search with search terms [wellbeing OR well-being], identifying 17,543 records with bibliographic data. This dataset included 20,526 keywords. Of the identified records, 10,715 full-text manuscripts were retrieved. Study two explored data from a topic search with search terms [(intensive OR critical) AND (nurs*) AND (wellbeing OR well-being)], identifying 383 records with bibliographic data. This dataset included 1223 author keywords. Of the identified records, 328 full-text manuscripts were retrieved.

RESULTS

Once data were collected, for size and impact, WoS Clarivate Analytics™ and RStudio™ were used to explore publication dates, frequencies, and citation performance. For disciplinary reach, RStudio™ (with the Bibliometrics™ package & Vosviewer™ plugin) was used to explore the records in terms of country of publication, journal presence, and mapping of authors. For semantics, once the bibliographic data was imported to RStudio™ (with the Bibliometrics™ package & Vosviewer™ plugin) keyword co-occurrences were identified and visualised. Full-text manuscripts were imported to NVivo™ to explore word frequencies of both the keywords and full-text manuscripts using the word frequency search. For both studies, records were predominantly published in the past 5 years, in English language, and from USA. The highest keyword co-occurrence for study one was "health and well-being", and for study two, "family and model".

CONCLUSIONS

Terms commonly associated with 'illbeing', as opposed to 'wellbeing', were highly prevalent in both study datasets, but more so in intensive care nurse wellbeing data. Intensive care nurse wellbeing was virtually absent in this literature. The iAnalysis model provided a practice-friendly tool to explore a large source of online published literature.

[From clinical practice to nursing research: Auto-ethnography as a tool for analyzing the researcher’s identity transitions]

The scientific legitimacy of nursing research depends on its adherence to different scientific criteria. Despite the lack of consensus on predetermined criteria, reflexivity is widely discussed as a strategy to establish rigour in qualitative research. Unfortunately, with the exception of tools such as the reflexive journal, little is said about how reflexivity can be completed. Several recent studies suggest the relevance of autoethnography to support the reflexive approach of nurse researchers. Inspired by the findings of an autoethnography and a narrative literature review, this article examines how this approach can contribute to the reflexivity of the nurse researcher. Autoethnography seems particularly adapted to the professional and academic context in which many nurses evolve. As a reflective tool, autoethnography can promote the development of the researcher's self-awareness, provide analytical tools to help better understand the influence of previous experiences on the relationship to research and report on the transition between different professional identities. In order to contribute to the debate on the use of autoethnography in qualitative research, central elements to this approach are discussed.

Contemporary factors shaping the professional identity of occupational therapy lecturers

Introduction

The contemporary factors of neoliberalism and evidence-based practice have implications for professional autonomy and values, education and training, ways of working and construction of knowledge. Occupational therapy lecturers are at the interface between student education and professional practice and therefore have unique insights into the way in which these factors are shaping their professional identity and that of the profession.

Method

Nine narrative inquiry focused interviews of occupational therapy lecturers from two universities were carried out. Data was interpreted through a Bourdieusian lens of professional habitus, and analysed thematically.

Findings

The main factors influencing occupational therapy lecturer identity were noted to be relationships between professional identity and artistry; the professional body of knowledge and language; evidencing practice, neoliberalism and changes to teaching and learning.

Conclusion

The structural factors of neoliberalism, evidence-based practice and associated policies are influencing the occupational therapy professional habitus and, in turn, occupational therapy lecturers’ professional identity. An effective critique of these structural factors is required to maintain the profession’s values and artistry and the knowledge upon which occupational therapy lecturers’ identity is formed and their approaches to teaching and learning are based.

Team social cohesion, professionalism, and patient-centeredness: Gendered care work, with special reference to elderly care - a mixed methods study

BACKGROUND

Healthcare organisations are facing large demands in recruiting employees with adequate competency to care for the increasing numbers of elderly. High degrees of turnover and dissatisfaction with working conditions are common. The gendered notion of care work as 'women's work', in combination with low salaries and status, may contribute to negative work experiences. There is abundant information about the negative aspects of elderly care health services, but little is known about positive aspects of this work. The study aim was to investigate work satisfaction from a gender perspective among Swedish registered nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists, focusing specifically on healthcare services for the elderly.

METHODS

A mixed methods approach was adopted in which we combined statistics and open-ended responses from a national survey with qualitative research interviews with healthcare professionals in elderly care organisations. The survey was administered to a random sample of 1578 registered nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists. Qualitative interviews with 17 professionals were conducted in six elderly care facilities. Qualitative and quantitative content analyses, chi2 and constructivist grounded theory were used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

There was a statistically significant difference in overall work satisfaction between those who worked in elderly care and those who did not (64 and 74,4% respectively, p <0.001). Nine themes were derived from open-ended responses in the questionnaire. The qualitative interviews revealed four prominent storylines: 'Team social cohesion', 'Career development and autonomy', 'Client-centeredness', and 'Invisible and ignored power structures'.

CONCLUSIONS

The results show the complexity of elderly care work and describe several aspects that are important for work satisfaction among health professionals. The results reveal that work satisfaction is dependent on social interrelations and cohesion in the work team, in possibilities to use humour and to have fun together, and in the ability to work as professionals to provide client-centered elderly care. Power relations such as gendered hierarchies were less visible or even ignored aspects of work satisfaction. The storylines are clearly linked to the two central discourses of professionalism and gender equality.

Describing the implementation of an innovative intervention and evaluating its effectiveness in increasing research capacity of advanced clinical nurses: using the consolidated framework for implementation research

Background

Despite advanced nursing roles having a research competency, participation in research is low. There are many barriers to participation in research and few interventions have been developed to address these. This paper aims to describe the implementation of an intervention to increase research participation in advanced clinical nursing roles and evaluate its effectiveness.

Methods

The implementation of the intervention was carried out within one hospital site. The evaluation utilised a mixed methods design and a implementation science framework. All staff in advanced nursing roles were invited to take part, all those who were interested and had a project in mind could volunteer to participate in the intervention. The intervention consisted of the development of small research groups working on projects developed by the nurse participant/s and supported by an academic and a research fellow. The main evaluation was through focus groups. Output was analysed using thematic analysis. In addition, a survey questionnaire was circulated to all participants to ascertain their self-reported research skills before and after the intervention. The results of the survey were analysed using descriptive statistics. Finally an inventory of research outputs was collated.

Results

In the first year, twelve new clinical nurse-led research projects were conducted and reported in six peer reviewed papers, two non-peer reviewed papers and 20 conference presentations. The main strengths of the intervention were its promptness to complete research, to publish and to showcase clinical innovations. Main barriers identified were time, appropriate support from academics and from peers. The majority of participants had increased experience at scientific writing and data analysis.

Conclusion

This study shows that an intervention, with minor financial resources; a top down approach; support of a hands on research fellow; peer collaboration with academics; strong clinical ownership by the clinical nurse researcher; experiential learning opportunities; focused and with needs based educational sessions, is an intervention that can both increase research outputs and capacity of clinically based nurses. Interventions to further enhance nursing research and their evaluation are crucial if we are to address the deficit of nurse-led patient-centred research in the literature.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12912-017-0214-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.