Nursing - Research Publications
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ItemImproving the quality of nurse-influenced patient care in the intensive care unit(WILEY, 2017-11)BACKGROUND: Quality of care is a major focus in the intensive care unit (ICU). AIM: To describe a nurse-initiated quality improvement (QI) project that improved the care of critically ill patients in a New Zealand tertiary ICU. DESIGN: A framework for QI was developed and implemented as part of a practice change initiative. METHODS: Audit data were collected, analysed and reported across seven nurse-influenced patient care standards. The seven standards were enteral nutrition delivered within 24 h of admission, timely administration of antibiotics, sedation holds for eligible patients, early mobilization and three pressure ulcer prevention strategies. RESULTS: Comparison of audit data collected in 2014 and 2015 demonstrated improvements in five of the seven standards. Those standards with the largest practice improvements were related to the following standards: all eligible patients have enteral nutrition commenced within the first 24 h of ICU admission (3% increase); all eligible patients receive antibiotics within 30 min of prescription time (6% increase); all eligible patients have a daily sedation interruption (DSI; 24% increase); and all eligible patients are mobilized daily in their ICU stay (11% increase in percentage of patients mobilized daily). CONCLUSIONS: The nursing-initiated QI project demonstrated improved ICU patient care in relation to early enteral nutrition commencement, DSIs and early and daily mobilizing. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The use of a nursing QI framework incorporating audit and feedback is one method of evaluating and enhancing the quality of care and improving patient outcomes. This initiative demonstrated the improved quality of nursing care for ICU patients, particularly in relation to early enteral nutrition commencement, timely antibiotics, DSIs and daily mobilizing. It is thus highly relevant to critical care nursing teams, particularly those working to create a culture where change is safe, achievable and valued.
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ItemStrengthening workplace well-being: perceptions of intensive care nurses(WILEY, 2019-01)BACKGROUND: Intensive care nursing is a professionally challenging role, elucidated in the body of research focusing on nurses' ill-being, including burnout, stress, moral distress and compassion fatigue. Although scant, research is growing in relation to the elements contributing to critical care nurses' workplace well-being. Little is currently known about how intensive care nurse well-being is strengthened in the workplace, particularly from the intensive care nurse perspective. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Identify intensive care nurses' perspectives of strategies that strengthen their workplace well-being. DESIGN: An inductive descriptive qualitative approach was used to explore intensive care nurses' perspectives of strengthening work well-being. METHOD: New Zealand intensive care nurses were asked to report strategies strengthening their workplace well-being in two free-text response items within a larger online survey of well-being. FINDINGS: Sixty-five intensive care nurses identified 69 unique strengtheners of workplace well-being. Strengtheners included nurses drawing from personal resources, such as mindfulness and yoga. Both relational and organizational systems' strengtheners were also evident, including peer supervision, formal debriefing and working as a team to support each other. CONCLUSIONS: Strengtheners of intensive care nurses' workplace well-being extended across individual, relational and organizational resources. Actions such as simplifying their lives, giving and receiving team support and accessing employee assistance programmes were just a few of the intensive care nurses' identified strengtheners. These findings inform future strategic workplace well-being programmes, creating opportunities for positive change. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Intensive care nurses have a highly developed understanding of workplace well-being strengtheners. These strengtheners extend from the personal to inter-professional to organizational. The extensive range of strengtheners the nurses have identified provides a rich source for the development of future workplace well-being programmes for critical care.
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ItemIntensive care nurse conceptions of well-being: a prototype analysis(WILEY, 2018-11)BACKGROUND: Accurately conceptualizing intensive care nurse work well-being is fundamental for successful engagement with workplace well-being interventions. Little is currently known about intensive care nurse work well-being. AIMS: The study aimed to identify intensive care nurses' conceptions of work well-being and ascertain whether the term 'work well-being' is prototypically organized. METHODS: Three linked studies conceptualize intensive care nurse well-being. For study one, participants listed key features of work well-being as free-text responses. Study two measured whether there was prototypical organization of these responses. Study three sought to confirm the prototypical organization of the term 'work well-being' through narrative ratings. RESULTS: A total of 82 New Zealand intensive care nurses were randomly allocated to the three studies; 65 participated. In study one (n = 23), the most frequently endorsed elements included: workload (n = 14), job satisfaction (n = 13) and support (n = 13). In study two (n = 25), the highest rated elements included: feeling valued, respect, support, work-life balance and workplace culture. Elements of support, work-life balance and workload were in the top five most frequently endorsed elements and were also rated in the top 12 most central. Overall, the ratings of centrality and number of endorsements were positively correlated (r = 0.35, P < 0.05). In study three (n = 17), nine participants selected the same rating across both narratives with no differentiation on the 11-point scale and were excluded from analysis. The mean score for the central narrative was 7.88 and for the peripheral narrative was 7.38. Confirmatory analyses did not reach statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: Unique conceptions of work well-being were identified. Workload and work-life balance were central characteristics. Feeling valued and experiencing respect and support were considered most important. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Intensive care nurse conceptions of work well-being are fundamental for future measures of work well-being and future interventional studies and initiatives.
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ItemOral intake evaluation in patients following critical illness: an ICU cohort study(WILEY, 2018-07)Timely and adequate nutrition improves health outcomes for the critically ill patient. Despite clinical guidelines recommending early oral nutrition, survivors of critical illness experience significant nutritional deficits. This cohort study evaluates the oral nutrition intake in intensive care unit (ICU) patients who have experienced recent critical illness. The oral nutrition intake of a convenience sample of ICU patients post-critical illness was observed during a 1-month period. Data pertaining to both the amount of oral nutrition intake and factors impacting optimal oral nutrition intake were collected and analysed. Inadequate oral intake was identified in 62% of the 79 patients assessed (n = 49). This was noted early in the ICU stay, around day 1-2, for most of the patients. A significant proportion (25%) of patients remained in the hospital with poor oral intake that persisted beyond ICU day 5. Unsurprisingly, these were the patients who had longer ICU stays. Critical illness weakness was a factor in the assessment of poor oral intake. To conclude, patients who have experienced critical illness also experience suboptimal oral nutrition. The three key factors that were identified as impacting optimal oral nutrition were early removal of nasogastric tubes, critical illness weakness and poor appetite post-critical illness. Seven key recommendations are made based on this cohort study. These recommendations are related to patient assessment, monitoring, documentation and future guidelines. Future research opportunities are highlighted, including the investigation of strategies to improve the transition of patients' post-critical illness to oral nutrition.
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ItemQuality appraisal of workers' wellbeing measures: a systematic review protocol(BMC, 2018-12-20)BACKGROUND: Measuring wellbeing has never been so important. With the rapid growth of workplace wellbeing interventions, determining their effectiveness is not only good science but also good practice. A wide variety of wellbeing measures exist in the literature but it is not always clear what they are measuring, nor which measures best meet study objectives. This study seeks to identify the most valid and reliable measure/s of workers' wellbeing. METHODS: Measures will be included if they were (1) designed for measuring workers' wellbeing and (2) available in English. We will use a three-staged electronic search strategy to identify studies that include measures that meet the inclusion criteria: (1) electronic bibliographic databases for published work, (2) reference lists of studies with included measures, and (3) the reference list of previously published reviews. The following electronic bibliographic databases will be searched: OVID: psycINFO, psycTESTS, Cochrane library, AMED, Health and Psychosocial instruments; PubMed; PubPsych; Europe PMC; Scopus and Google Scholar. Database key search terms will include [wellbeing OR "well-being"] AND [employee* OR worker* OR staff OR personnel], and a validated search filter will be applied for the measurement properties. The methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed and rated. Then, this quality assessment of the included studies will be considered in the quality assessment of the measurement instruments. Finally, recommendations for the most appropriate instrument to measure workers' wellbeing will be reported. DISCUSSION: This systematic review will evaluate the quality of instruments that measure workers' wellbeing. The findings of this review will improve clarity for researchers and clinicians in the appropriate instrument selection in the measurement of workers' wellbeing. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42018079044.
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ItemBibliometric mapping of intensive care nurses' wellbeing: development and application of the new iAnalysis model(BMC, 2019-06-03)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.