[The nurses' strike in the United Kingdom: the reasons, the debate and the implications]. / Lo sciopero degli infermieri nel Regno Unito: le ragioni, il dibattito e le implicazioni.

. The nurses' strike in the United Kingdom: an overview of the reasons, debate and implications. INTRODUCTION: In the UK, where the National Health Service (NHS) was founded, one of the most important and long-lasting strikes in nursing is taking place. AIM: To understand the historical, professional, political/social reasons for the UK nurse's strike. METHOD: Historical, scientific literature and data from key informant interviews have been analysed. Data has been summarized narratively. RESULTS: On 15th December 2022, more than 100,000 NHS nurses went on strike in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales asking for an increased salary; on the 6th and 7th of February and 1st of March the protest has continued. By improving pay, nurses believe the attractiveness of the profession can increase and counteract the loss of nurses who are leaving the public for the private sector, and the lack of attractiveness of the profession towards young people. The strike is organized by the Royal College of Nursing in a structured form which gives nurses precise information on how it should be explained to patients: according to a survey, 79% of the population supports the nurses' strike. However, not all agree with this strike action. DISCUSSION: The media, social media and professional debate is passionate with some polarization between who is in favor and who is against. Nurses strike not only for better wages but also to increase patient safety. What we see in the UK today is the result of years of austerity, lack of investment and health priorities: a similar situation experienced in several countries as well.

What knowledge is available on massive open online courses in nursing and academic healthcare sciences education? A rapid review.

BACKGROUND: With the recent challenges due to the Coronavirus 2019 outbreak, distance learning has been largely introduced in healthcare sciences curricula, and universities have been called upon to share learning opportunities with each other to ensure continuity of education and delivery of new graduates to the health system. However, decisions about its introduction should be supported by up-to-date evidence capable of providing an overview of available knowledge. OBJECTIVES: To map the (a) state of research on massive open online courses in undergraduate and postgraduate health sciences education, (b) evaluation methods and tools used to measure learning outcomes, and (c) factors increasing their effectiveness as documented to date. DESIGN: A rapid review following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis guidelines. METHODS: PubMed, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane, Scopus, PsycInfo and Medline (via Ovid) were searched. Primary studies reporting one or more massive open online course (1) devoted to undergraduate and/or postgraduate students in nursing and healthcare sciences (2), written in English (3) with abstract available (4) and published up to February 18th, 2020 were all included. After having assessed the need for a review and the topic itself (a), the literature search was performed (b), studies were screened and selected (c), data was extracted (d), and the findings were summarised (e). RESULTS: Thirty-six studies emerged with mainly an explorative/descriptive or case study design. The courses have been developed mainly by universities alone or in collaboration with institutions mainly in US, Sweden and the UK. Their delivery has been performed at multi-national levels, mainly in English, and with a number of participants ranging from 45 to >23,000. The duration spanned from two weeks to six months on clinical topics (e.g., emergency medicine) to methods (e.g., statistics). The target audience has been mainly mixed, including students, healthcare professionals, and lay citizens. Evaluation methods and tools have been described in 28 studies, and multiple-choice questions were most frequently adopted. Factors affecting the effectiveness of massive open online courses have been identified analysing the courses themselves and the participants. CONCLUSION: Massive open online courses have recently started to be studied in healthcare sciences: these can be useful to educate students, mainly as elective courses, and to educate a massive audience, thus embodying the third mission of the university. The complexity of factors increasing effectiveness suggests the need for a multidisciplinary approach both in their design and implementation.