Nursing

Clinical Supervision in the Workplace: Guidance for Occupational Nurses

This leaflet has been designed as an introduction to clinical supervision. It aims to stimulate ideas and to encourage occupational health nurses to set up supervision practice in their workplaces. Clinical supervision isn’t a management tool, but can be used as a support and prompt to professional practice in a creative way. [from introduction]

Electronic Learning: an RCN Guide for Nurse Educators

Electronic learning: a guide for nurse educators has been written by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Education Forum in response to growing interest in new learning technologies, both from individual nursing educators and as a result of education policy initiatives. The guidance sets out what we mean by e-learning, the skills that you as nursing educators, and your learners, will need for electronic learning, and the range of learning technology opportunities. [from introduction]

Dealing with Bullying and Harassment: a Guide for Nursing Students

This guide is aimed mainly at nursing students. It should help you to: recognize if you or a collegue are being bullied or harassed; take action against bullying or harassment; raise awareness of the problem with employers, educators and students; encourage nursing educators and employers to carry through anti-harassment policies. [from introduction]

Information Needs of Nurses: Summary Report of an RCN Survey

This report summarizes a UK-wide survey to find out what information nurses, health visitors,midwives and health care assistants need to support their practice and lifelong learning. [adapted from author]

Here to Stay? International Nurses in the UK

The Royal College of Nursing commissioned this report into the employment policy and practice implications of the rapid growth in the number of internationally recruited nurses working in the UK. [from summary]

Guidance for Nurse Staffing in Critical Care

These documents aim for a level of staffing and skill mix that is determined by patient need and level of dependency to ensure that patients’ needs are met. Therefore, effective workforce planning is essential. This guidance looks at the considerations for employers, senior nurses and others planning staffing needs at ward, unit and organisational level. [from introduction]

Nursing Workforce Profile

This yearly profile is a summary of statistics about the nursing workforce in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, UK and USA.

ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses

The ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses, most recently revised in 2006, is a guide for action based on social values and needs. The Code is regularly reviewed and revised in response to the realities of nursing and health care in a changing society. The Code makes it clear that inherent in nursing is respect for human rights, including the right to life, to dignity and to be treated with respect. The ICN Code of Ethics guides nurses in everyday choices and it supports their refusal to participate in activities that conflict with caring and healing. [publisher’s description]

Reducing the Impact of HIV/AIDS on Nursing & Midwifery Personnel

These revised and expanded guidelines aim to help [national nursing associations], nursing and midwifery personnel, nurse managers, employers and others to address the educational needs and ethical responsibilities of nursing and midwifery personnel in reducing transmission of HIV/AIDS, HBV, HCV and tuberculosis; develop strategies for a safer work environment and increased protection for nursing and midwifery personnel; and address the socioeconomic welfare issues related to the health care needs, compensation and financial security of HIV-positive nursing and midwifery personnel.

It's Your Career: Take Charge: Career Planning and Development

This document is directed towards individual nurses to help them take charge and be in control of their careers within the ever-changing world of health care. These guidelines highlight the key dimensions of career planning and development and offer guidance to those who wish to evaluate the present and shape their future. [adapted from introduction]

Guidelines on the Nurse Entre/Intrapraneur Providing Nursing Service

The content of these guidelines focuses on nurse entrepreneurs providing nursing services. These guidelines aim to: provide background knowledge on the development of nurse entrepreneurs providing nursing service; establish the link between nurse entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs; identify the roles, services, basic profile and requirements of nurse entrepreneurs; and define the potential role of national nurses’ associations in the development and regulation of nurse entrepreneurs providing nursing service. [adpated from author’s description)

Guidelines on Coping with Violence in the Workplace

The objectives of these guidelines are: to review the prevalence, incidence and impact of abuse and violence against nursing personnel, to recognise nurses’ responses to incidents of violence, to determine the major security factors acting on the workplace, and to present strategies that aim to confront and reduce/eliminate violence in the workplace. [adapted from introduction]

Career Moves and Migration: Critical Questions

This document highlights the potential advantages and perils of career moves and migration for nurses, describes some of the main nurse migration trends and establishes a list of critical questions as an ethical framework for nurse recruitment. [adapted from author]

Nurses and Overtime

Nurses are increasingly working overtime. Nurses’ overtime (mandatory or voluntary) has been used as a measure to reduce the impact of the critical shortage of nurses and/or the downsizing of nursing departments in both private and public health facilities. However, the increasing amount of overtime threatens nurses’ ability to provide safe and individualised care for patients. [author’s description]

Nurse: Patient Ratios

Healthcare systems worldwide are stressed by limited resources and increasing demands on their services. Nurses, as the largest group of healthcare professionals, have experienced significant changes in their work life and environment as systems have tried to meet these challenges. As workloads become more substantial and the number of nurses per patient diminishes, patients and healthcare workers across the globe are put increasingly at risk. [introduction]

Promise and Advantage of Distance-Learning for Nurses and Midwives

This presentation was part of the ECSACON Conference. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of traditional teaching versus distance education for nurses and midwives.

Management and Leadership: Analysis of Nurse Manager's Knowledge

Nurses have assumed management positions in many health institutions. To properly accomplish the demands of this role, it is important that they be competent in both management and leadership. For appropriate performance, knowledge of management and supervision styles is a priority. Therefore, the goal of this investigation is to identify the nurse manager’s knowledge regarding management and leadership.

Case Study of a Longstanding Online Community of Practice Involving Critical Care and Advanced Practice Nurses

The aims of this study are: to examine to what extent critical care and advanced practice nurses’participation in an online listserv constituted a community of practice, and to explore how the nurses use electronic media to communicate with one another. Findings suggest that the online listserv environment, as a whole, did function as an online community of practice, where participation not only served as an avenue for knowledge sharing situated in the actual context of the nurses’ everyday work experience, but also helped to reinforce identity of the nursing practice itself. [from abstrac

Licensure, Certification, and Accreditation

This article provides an historical overview of the three major ways that nursing regulates the profession, its members, and their performance, i.e., licensure, certification, and accreditation. Each type of regulation mechanism is described and differences between them are explained. Current issues related to accreditation of schools of nursing are outlined. [abstract]

Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness in Nursing Education: an Iranian Perspective

The main objective of this study was to determine the perceptions of Iranian nurse educators and students regarding the evaluation of teaching effectiveness in university-based programs. [from abstract]

Positive Practice Environments: Key Considerations for the Development of a Framework to Support the Integration of International Nurses

This paper focuses on nurses who have migrated and are registered/licensed/authorized to practice, post-adaptation/orientation, and are working as a nurse in a given country. The term international nurse is used for nurses who have been educated abroad and have either been recruited or have chosen to migrate.

Comparative Analysis of the Changes in Nursing Practice Related to Health Sector Reform in Five Countries of the Americas

This study provides initial information about current nursing issues that have arisen as a result of health care reform initiatives. Regardless of differences in service models or phases of health sector reform implementation, in all the countries the participating nurses identified many common themes, trends, and changes in nursing practice. The driving forces for change and their intensity have been different in the five countries.

Highlights from the Regulated Nursing Workforce in Canada, 2005

This publication is a companion document to the Workforce Trends of Regulated Nurses in Canada series of publications. The Workforce Trends series organizes and presents data by nursing profession, with separate publications for each of the licensed practical nurse (LPN), registered nurse (RN) and registered psychiatric nurse (RPN) workforces. This publication, in contrast, organizes and presents data by province or territory.

Mainstreaming Natural Family Planning: the IRH Experience in the Philippines

This report documents the efforts of the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) to integrate natural family planning methods into the health delivery system in the Phillipines. It discusses the venues used for implementation such as government and NGO partnerships as well as IRH’s training resources and activities for nurses and midwives on family planning. Finally, the report details best practices and lessons learned from the multi-year project.

Role of the Africa Midwives Research Network in Strengthening the Contribution of Nurses and Midwives in Response to HIV/AIDS Epidemic in ECSA Region

This presentation discusses the AMRN role of strengthening nurses and midwives in their responses to HIV/AIDS by improving their knowledge and skills in evidence based practice, research, counseling, advocacy and education. Included is information about the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS problem and some strategies that AMRN has used to address the problem through nurses and midwives.

Changing Role of the Clinic Nurse

This issue of the HST Update contains articles on: overview of nursing in South Africa, transforming nursing education towards primary health care, problems in nursing today, nursing summit charters a way forward, placement of nurses, nurse training in Mount Frere health district, and the quest for rational drug use.

Setting Safe Nurse Staffing Levels: an Exploration of the Issues

One of the resolutions at the RCN’s 2000 Congress expressed concerned at the lack of a universal mechanism to determine safe staffing levels. This reflected widespread concern within the profession about the potential increase in risks to patient safety posed by increased levels of activity, and inadequate levels of nurse staffing, in the NHS. Over the years, there have been many attempts to develop a universally acceptable and reliable formula which will be able to predict the precise nurse staffing levels needed to ensure patient safety. Even if this is not a realistic goal, and the literature on workforce planning suggests that it is not, the Congress resolution provided a timely opportunity to reconsider the important professional and managerial issues associated with setting safe staffing levels.

Institutionalization of Reproductive Health Preservice Education in the Philippines: An Evaluation of Programmatic Effort, 1987-1998

From 1987 to 1998, JHPIEGO, through its Training in Reproductive Health (TRH) Project, collaborated with the Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing (ADPCN) and the Association of Philippine Schools of Midwifery (APSOM) to strengthen preservice nursing and midwifery education in the Philippines. Between 1987 and 1994, JHPIEGO initiated activities to strengthen family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) and enhance trainer/faculty development in five nursing schools and five midwifery schools.

Establishing a Nursing Student Learning Center for Women's Reproductive Health in Nepal

The goal of this paper is to describe the establishment of a self-sustaining Student Learning Center (SLC) employing humanistic anatomical models to aid in the teaching of family planning and reproductive health clinical skills to nursing students in Nepal.

Addressing the Human Resource in Health Crisis: Empowering the Private Not for Profit Health Training Institutions to Play Their Role

This presentation was part of the International Conference on Global Health session, “Answering the Call: Innovations in Human Resources by African Faith-Based Organizations.” From the perspective of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau experience, the presentation discusses why the private not-for-profit sector is important in service provision and training; why nurses are in the midst of the human resource crisis; obastacles to increasing the training capacity; and what the PNFP health training institutions are doing to address their weaknesses. [adapted from author]