Last week’s EBN Twitter chat “End of Life Care; One Chance to Get it Right” highlighted the important issue of the care of those who are dying. As nurses, we are all encouraged to individualize care and to ‘start the conversation’ with patients about their wishes, but where does this start? What does it entail? […]
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Do we Promote Children’s Rights in relation to Consenting to and Refusing Treatment?
I am undertaking a module on the sociology of childhood at the Institute of Education. One of the things we have discussed is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (United Nations 1989) which is 25 years old this month. As last week’s Twitter Chat and Blog focused on children’s rights […]
How valid and reliable are qualitative studies?
Qualitative work has been identified in some quarters as weak, without rigour, subjective and of little use. For an interesting discussion on this see http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/9/52. In contrast, quantitative research, which aims to delineate phenomena into measurable categories, generalizable to other populations is often viewed as superior. In quantitative research standardised measures are often used in […]
Disabled children and child protection issues: A cause for concern?
This week’s Blog is written by Professor Julie Taylor and Dr Chris Jones from the University of Edinburgh/NSPCC Child Protection Research Centre. We will be hosting this week’s ENB twitter chat on Wednesday the 5th of November between 8-9pm (GMT) focusing on recent research on disabled children and the child protection system. Participating in the twitter chat requires […]
Ebola: Will Nurses Have a Choice?
In August, Jo Smith, another Associate Editor of EBN, wrote a blog about Ebola. The question was whether it was a global health problem. At that time, the disease had been largely a scourge in West Africa. Since then, we’ve seen the first cases of Ebola in the US and, it feels like only a […]
Option Grids: Expanding our toolkit for supporting shared decision making
I am always looking for new ways to improve the way we support patients to make informed choices about their healthcare, using the best available evidence from research. Shared decision making necessitates information sharing and giving patients a voice in decision making. It is often easier said than done and both patients and care providers […]
Why is pain still not managed effectively?
Due to unforeseen circumstances this week’s Twitter Chat focusing on the care of people with learning disabilities has had be postponed. Watch this space for details of its rescheduled date. Given this I am taking the opportunity to report on some of my reflections while at the World Congress on Pain. Along with several thousand […]
Patient-centred Renal Care – A Multidisciplinary Approach to Holistic Health
The 43rd European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association/European Renal Care Association (EDTNA/ERCA) International Conference was held in Riga, Latvia in September 2014 (see http://www.edtnaerca-conference2014.com/). This annual event brings together members of the renal healthcare team who strive to improve the care offered to people with renal disease and their carers. The conference is a place […]
Patients need help to navigate the maze of healthcare
Each time I enter the healthcare system from the other side (that is the side of the patient or family member) I am reminded how vulnerable patients and families are when there is no one advocating for them. I am reminded of how important good communication is between patients and care providers, and how critical the flow […]
Mentoring and supporting student nurses by Suzanne Van Zyl, Senior Sister Critical Care Unit, The London Clinic
I work in a critical care unit and one of my roles is to organize the overall support and mentoring for student nurses on placement on my unit. Having undertaken this role for a number of years. I know that there are different types of learners, auditory (hear), visual (see) and kinesthetic (touch) (Honey and […]