This new edition of Ann Bowling's well-known and highly respected text has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect key methodological developments in health research. It is a comprehensive, easy to read, guide to the range of methods used to study and evaluate health and health services. It describes the concepts and methods used by the main disciplines involved in health research, including: demography, epidemiology, health economics, psychology and sociology.The research methods described cover the assessment of health needs, morbidity and mortality trends and rates, costing health services, sampling for survey research, cross-sectional and longitudinal survey design, experimental methods and techniques of group assignment, questionnaire design, interviewing techniques, coding and analysis of quantitative data, methods and analysis of qualitative observational studies, and types of unstructured interviewing. With new material on topics such as cluster randomization, utility analyses, patients' preferences, and perception of risk, the text is aimed at students and researchers of health and health services. It has also been designed for health professionals and policy makers who have responsibility for applying research findings in practice, and who need to know how to judge the value of that research.

Research Methods in Health. Investigating health and health services

Nursing Research—Principles and Methods

The discourse of safety has informed the care of individuals with mental illness through institutionalization and into modern psychiatric nursing practices. Confinement arose from safety: out of both societal stigma and fear for public safety, as well as benevolently paternalistic aims to protect individuals from self-harm. In this paper, we argue that within current psychiatric inpatient environments, safety is maintained as the predominant value, and risk management is the cornerstone of nursing care. Practices that accord with this value are legitimized and perpetuated through the safety discourse, despite evidence refuting their efficacy, and patient perspectives demonstrating harm. To illustrate this growing concern in mental health nursing care, we provide four exemplars of risk management strategies utilized in psychiatric inpatient settings: close observations, seclusion, door locking and defensive nursing practice. The use of these strategies demonstrates the necessity to shift perspectives on safety and risk in nursing care. We suggest that to re-centre meaningful support and treatment of clients, nurses should provide individualized, flexible care that incorporates safety measures while also fundamentally re-evaluating the risk management culture that gives rise to and legitimizes harmful practices.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/nin.12199

Safety in psychiatric inpatient care: The impact of risk management culture on mental health nursing practice

Ireland and the Islands. • We exist to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public. • We set the standards of education, training and conduct that nurses and midwives need to deliver high quality healthcare consistently throughout their careers. • We ensure that nurses and midwives keep their skills and knowledge up to date and uphold the standards of their professional code. • We ensure that midwives are safe to practise by setting rules for their practice and supervision. • We have fair processes to investigate allegations made against nurses and midwives who may not have followed the code.

The code: standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives and applied ethical principles.

Pain following ambulatory surgery is often poorly managed at home. Certain procedures, such as tonsillectomy, cause high levels of pain for at least 1 week postoperatively. This impacts significantly on recovery and postoperative morbidity with regards to oral intake, sleep, and behavior. Barriers to effective postoperative pain management at home following discharge have been investigated and incorporate: parental factors, such as the ability to recognize and assess their child's pain, and misconceptions about analgesics; child factors, such as refusal to take medication; medication factors, such as ineffective medication or inadequate formulation or dose of analgesics; and system factors, such as poor discharge instructions, difficulty in obtaining medication and lack of information provision. A number of interventions have been suggested and trialled in an effort to address these barriers, which encompass educational strategies, improved information provision, improved medication regimens, and the provision of tools to aid parents in the pain management of their children. All in all, improvements in pain outcomes have been minor, and a more holistic approach, that appreciates the complex and multifaceted nature of pain management at home, is required.

Effective postoperative pain management in children after ambulatory surgery, with a focus on tonsillectomy: barriers and possible solutions.

Aim
To conduct an integrative review and synthesize current primary studies of professional ethics in nursing.

Background
Professional ethics is a familiar concept in nursing and provides an ethical code for nursing practice. However, little is known about how professional ethics has been defined and studied in nursing science.

Design and data sources
Systematic literature searches from 1948–February 2013, using the CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus electronic databases to look at previously published peer-reviewed studies.

Review method
A modified version of Cooper's five-stage integrative review was used to review and synthesize current knowledge.

Results
Fourteen papers were included in this research. According to our synthesis, professional ethics is described as an intra-professional approach to care ethics and professionals commit to it voluntarily. Professional ethics consist of values, duties, rights and responsibilities, regulated by national legislation and international agreements and detailed in professional codes. Professional ethics is well established in nursing, but is constantly changing due to internal and external factors affecting the profession.

Conclusion
Despite the obvious importance of professional ethics, it has not been studied much in nursing science. Greater knowledge of professional ethics is needed to understand and support nurses’ moral decision-making and to respond to the challenges of current changes in health care and society.

Professional ethics in nursing: an integrative review.

Scand J Caring Sci; 2010; 24; 49–55

Nurses’ attitudes and perceptions of pain assessment in neonatal intensive care

Background:  Pain assessment of premature infants continue to be ineffective. The problem may be partly because of misconceptions or lack of knowledge in the assessment of pain in children.

Aims:  This paper reports a study to describe nurses’ attitudes towards and perceptions of pain assessment in neonatal intensive care and the demographic factors related to these attitudes and perceptions of pain.

Methods:  The participants consisted of 257 Finnish nurses who were recruited from all five of the country’s university hospitals caring for the premature infants receiving intensive care or monitoring. We collected data by using a Likert-type questionnaire in spring 2006. The response rate was 71% from the represented population.

Findings:  Almost all (97%) of the nurses agreed that pain assessment in premature infants is important. However, over half (60%) of the respondents agreed that they could assess the premature infants pain reliably without pain scores. The respondents’ perceptions of the premature infants’ ability to sense and express pain indicated rather good knowledge of the topic. Nevertheless, one-fourth of the participants was unaware that a premature infant could be more sensitive in sensing pain than a full term counterpart. Education, work experience and the working unit were the demographic factors that were significantly related to the respondents’ attitudes and perceptions.

Conclusions:  On average nurses’ attitudes were positive towards the pain assessment in neonatal intensive care. However, there were some gaps in the knowledge concerning the respondents’ perceptions of the items, which is a challenge to nursing and nursing education.

Nurses' attitudes and perceptions of pain assessment in neonatal intensive care.

Factors Influencing Parental Participation in Neonatal Pain Alleviation

This comparative focus group study explored nurses' experiences and perceptions regarding parental participation in infant pain management in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A total of 87 ...

Anne Korhonen

Papers

Professional ethics in nursing: an integrative review.

Nurses' attitudes and perceptions of pain assessment in neonatal intensive care.

Factors Influencing Parental Participation in Neonatal Pain Alleviation

Neonatal Intensive Care Nurses' Perceptions of Parental Participation in Infant Pain Management: A Comparative Focus Group Study.

Development and preliminary validation of the Neonatal Infant Acute Pain Assessment Scale (NIAPAS)