Reflecting on research: sharpening nurses' focus through engaged learning.

BACKGROUND: The Bedside Scientist Institute is a basic research course provided for nurses using an engaged, interactive learning environment. This qualitative study evaluated the course outcomes. METHODS: A large Magnet®-designated teaching hospital provided the setting for both the education and the study. Coding categories and themes were identified from 16 interviews; a focus group confirmed the study findings. RESULTS: Culture change was facilitated by enlarging the perceptual field, reflecting on research evidence and the practice-research interface, and focusing on a new vision for evidence-based practice. Half of the nurses who participated returned to formal education. CONCLUSION: Participating in the Bedside Scientist Institute was transformative. The course opened participants' minds to question traditional practice, developing champions for research.

Is the English National Health Service meeting the needs of mentally distressed Chinese women?

OBJECTIVES: To identify barriers to communication between health care workers and Chinese women living in England, a group who are known to use the National Health Service (NHS) less than other ethnic groups; to consider whether such barriers lead to inequitable access to NHS mental health treatment; and to determine the extent to which this results from institutional racism. METHOD: A purposive sample of 42 Chinese women living in South-East England aged 29-60 years derived from a primary care group, two secondary mental health service providers and three Chinese associations. Subjects had all consulted a general practitioner and had either experienced mental distress (n= 24) and/or had used traditional Chinese medicine (n = 25). RESULTS: Communication with health care professionals was hindered by a lack of common language and an absence of shared concepts concerning the causes and manifestations of health and illness, particularly mental health. This lack of communication resulted in delayed diagnoses, misunderstood treatment regimens and deterred women from (re-)presenting to the NHS. Among our informants, these types of problem were more acute for those women who were most marginalised from English-language culture. CONCLUSIONS: Linguistic and conceptual problems explain Chinese women's relatively poor access to mental health services. The continuing failure to tackle systematically these communication problems through the routine provision of interpretation and advocacy services lays the health care system open to the charge of "institutional racism".