Identifying personal health-related resources of women with breast cancer for nursing: An integrative review.

Personal health-related resources are essential for women with breast cancer, as these help them to maintain their own health and well-being during different phases of their illness. The purpose of this integrative review was to identify, describe and synthetise what personal health-related resources have already been identified for this patient group. We carried out an integrative review to find papers that focused on personal health-related resources for women with breast cancer aged 18-64 years. The search covered 1 January 2005 to 31 May 2021 and was carried out using the CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases. It was limited to peer-reviewed scientific papers with abstracts published in English and 23 papers met the inclusion criteria. The data were analysed using content analysis. Personal health-related resources for women with breast cancer consisted of three different, but inherently interconnected, categories of personal strengths, person-centred cancer care and social support from and involvement in their cultural community. Personal health-related resources for women with breast cancer were multifaceted. Women need nursing support to identify and use these resources and future studies are needed to strengthen how they are measured.

Recognising older people's individual resources and home-care-specific tasks in home care in Finland: A document analysis of care and service plans.

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE: Comprehensive care and service planning in home care is tailored to older people's individual needs and resources in order to support them living at home. However, little is known about how these individual resources and home-care-specific tasks are recognised in older people's care and service plans. AIMS: To describe the content of care and service plans in older people's home care with special attention to their individual resources and home-care-specific tasks. DESIGN: This was a document-based cross-sectional study with mixed-methods analysis, carried out in Eastern Finland during Spring 2018. METHODS: A document analysis using the deductive Finnish Care Classification (FinCC), and an inductively developed framework of older people's care and service plans (n = 71). The data were analysed with descriptive statistical methods. RESULTS: Altogether, 1718 notes were relevant to the FinCC main categories: 707 (41%) focused on older people's needs and 1011 (59%) on nursing interventions. We identified 1104 notes based on the 26 inductively developed main categories: the majority (n = 628, 57%) focused on individual resources and the remainder (n = 476, 43%) on home-care-specific tasks. Increasing age resulted in fewer notes on safety and sensory functions. There were fewer notes on resources related to sleeping and wakefulness after longer care and service periods. An increased number of home visits resulted in more documentation on tasks related to pharmaceutical issues, including repeat prescriptions. DISCUSSION: Individual resources for older people were documented, to some extent, in their care and service plans. It is necessary to review these alongside home-care-specific tasks that support older people's independence and safety at home. CONCLUSION: Individual resources need to be recognised in order to enable home-care professionals to provide tailored, high-quality home care services. Home-care-specific tasks should be supported by documentation with updated, sensitive home care classifications.

Registered nurses' perceptions of having a calling to nursing: A mixed-method study.

AIM: To explore how nurses perceived having a calling to nursing. DESIGN: A mixed-method study. METHODS: Survey data collected in autumn 2020 and semi-structured individual interview data collected in spring 2021. The 7925 survey respondents were care professionals and 414 of them were registered nurses. The 23 interview participants were registered nurses who responded to the survey. We examined the survey results using analysis of variance and t-tests and the interview data with qualitative thematic analysis. RESULTS: Registered nurses had a lower calling than other care professionals. Based on the interviews, having a calling to nursing produce four key findings. Nurses with a calling experienced their work as meaningful. They also adopted a humane and holistic approach to their work. However, their calling could change during their professional career. Due to its historical roots, having a calling was seen as a risk for the nursing profession, as it meant nurses had an oppressed position in society and nurses associated it with poor working conditions and low pay. CONCLUSION: Our study showed that having a calling to nursing had multidimensional benefits for the individual nurse, their patient, colleagues, organization and society, but showed strong association between calling and nurses' poor working conditions and low pay. IMPACT: We found that nurses had a lower calling than other care professionals. Calling still exists, but it can produce tension in modern nursing. Organizations and society need to focus on how calling can be seen as a more positive attribute of nursing and improve nurses' working conditions and pay.

Towards remote leadership in health care: Lessons learned from an integrative review.

AIM: To gather and synthesize current empirical evidence on remote leadership and to provide knowledge that can be used to develop successful remote leadership in health care. DESIGN: A integrative literature review with an integrated mixed methods design. DATA SOURCES: The literature search was carried out between February and March 2019 in the CINAHL, Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, Scopus, SocIndex, Web of Science and Business Source Elite (EBSCO) databases. REVIEW METHODS: An integrative review was conducted to identify relevant studies published from 2010 to 2019. Of the 88 eligible studies, 21 studies met the inclusion criteria and were selected for the final review. The included studies were analysed using mixed methods synthesis, more specifically, data-based convergent synthesis. RESULTS: The performed analysis identified three main themes: characteristics of successful remote leadership; enhancing the leader-member relationship; and challenges in remote leadership. The first theme included the following sub-themes: remote leader characteristics; trust; communication; and leading the team culture. The second theme covered the importance of organizing regular face-to-face meetings, clear communication policies and the connection between positive team spirit and good remote leader-member relationship, while the third theme emphasized leader- and member-related challenges for remote work. CONCLUSIONS: As none of the identified studies had been conducted in a health care setting, future remote leadership research must also specifically consider the health care context. This will be pivotal to exploring how remote work can foster a safe workplace culture, empower health care workers, increase job satisfaction and improve patient outcomes. IMPACT: Remote leadership has rarely been studied in the health care context. Trust, communication, team spirit and a leader's characteristics are central to remote leadership, a finding which is useful for re-evaluating and improving the current culture at health care organizations.

Nursing support for older people's autonomy in residential care: An integrative review.

BACKGROUND: Nurses play a crucial role in enabling older people's autonomy in residential care. However, there is a lack of synthesised knowledge about how nurses can support older people. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify and synthesise nursing support for older people's autonomy in residential care. METHODS: An integrative review was carried out by searching the CINAHL, Philosopher's index, PubMed, SocINDEX, Scopus and Web of Science databases, supplemented by manual searches. The searches focused on peer-reviewed scientific empirical research papers published in English, without date limitations. The constant comparison method was used for the analysis. RESULTS: The review identified 24 papers, and these showed that older people's autonomy was based on dignity. Nurses protected older people's autonomy in eight different ways. They protected their right to make their own decisions, acted as advocates, respected their wishes, provided opportunities for autonomy, fostered independence, gave information to residents and relatives, provided individualised care practices and protected older people's safety. However, there were also barriers that needed to be overcome. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses used multiple, individually tailored activities to support older people's autonomy, but they also had different reasons for supporting or hindering it. Work and leadership structures are needed to ensure that older people's autonomy is driven by ethical practices. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The results of this review can help nurses who provide residential care for older people to recognise the different nursing activities that can be used to support older people's autonomy and to develop strategies to apply them in different daily care situations. However, further research is needed to determine how these activities can be realised in daily care and how they cover different aspects of older people's lives in residential care.

The value that social workers' competencies add to health care: An integrative review.

Health and social care professionals' competencies have traditionally been separated because of the different aims of the two professions. These competencies need to be integrated, to make sure that seamless services are provided that meet the often complex needs of patients and clients in a coordinated and timely way. The aim of this integrative review was to identify, describe and synthetise previous studies on integrated competencies in health and social care. Electronic literature searches were carried out on the CINAHL, ProQuest, PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus and SocIndex databases for peer-reviewed scientific papers that were published in English between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2019. This identified 3,231 papers, after duplicates were removed, and 18 focused on the integration of social workers' competencies with health care. Other types of integration were not found. The value added by integrating social workers' competencies with health care focused on engaging working orientation, improving communication with family members, increasing understanding of service resources and mastering successful discharge procedures so that they met comprehensive, complex health and well-being needs. Social workers added value when they worked with multi-professional teams, but there were challenges to integrating competencies and these were related to professional collaboration and fragmented leadership. In future, more attention needs to be paid to diversifying and optimising the integration of professional health and social care competencies that meet clients' and patients' care and service needs. It is also vital to focus on developing the professional and leadership strategies that are needed to combine those competencies.

Expectant fathers' experiences of family-centred births in Estonia: a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: One of the aims of family-centred care is to provide expectant fathers with positive experiences during childbirth, so they can support their partners and bond with their new baby. However, research in this area has been limited. This study described men´s experiences with family-centred births in Estonia, Northern Europe. DESIGN: Qualitative study with open-ended interviews that were audio taped and analysed by inductive content analysis by Elo and Kyngäs (2008). SETTING: Birth units at one central and one regional hospital in Estonia. PARTICIPANTS: Twelve Estonian fathers aged 22-44, interviewed 4-12 weeks after their baby's birth. KEY CONCLUSIONS: Fathers' experiences of family-centred care during their baby's birth focused on their transition to fatherhood, their experiences of birth as a multifactorial life event and the experiences they shared with other fathers. They discussed supporting their partners during the birth, their involvement in decision making, the attitudes of healthcare professionals and how their role in the family changed. The fathers said that the birth was a private and public event, where their own role, and the roles of healthcare professionals, were confusing. This made family-centred care difficult during the birth. Sharing experiences with other fathers decreased their fears and increased their understanding of becoming fathers. Some fathers were not ready for fatherhood and midwives needed to assess how involved fathers wanted to get during the birth. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Family-centred care is important during birth, but more research is needed into how fathers see their role. The roles played by medical staff also need to be clearer. Better knowledge about what fathers expect and need, can help midwives to involve and support them at a level they feel comfortable with. Peer support can play a vital role in preparing fathers for birth and fatherhood.

Older people's perceived autonomy in residential care: An integrative review.

Autonomy has been recognised as a key principle in healthcare, but we still need to develop a consistent understanding of older people's perceived autonomy in residential care. This study aimed to identify, describe and synthesise previous studies on the perceived autonomy of older people in residential care. Ethical approval was not required, as this was a review of published literature. We carried out an integrative review to synthesise previous knowledge published in peer-review journals in English up to September 2019. Electronic and manual searches were conducted using the CINAHL, Philosopher's Index, PubMed, SocINDEX, Scopus and Web of Science databases. The data were analysed using the constant comparison method. The review identified 46 studies. Perceived autonomy referred to the opportunities that older people had to make their own choices about their daily life in residential care, and achieving autonomy promoted both health and quality of life. Autonomy was linked to older people's individual capacities, including their level of independence, physical and mental competence, personal characteristics, and whether relatives shared and supported their perceived autonomy. Professionals could facilitate or hinder older peoples' autonomy in a number of ways, including providing opportunities for autonomy, how daily care needs and activities were managed, and controlling older people's choices. Professionals' characteristics, such as education and attitudes, and the older people's living environments were also associated with their perceived autonomy and included organisational characteristics and physical and social care facilitators. Older people's perceived autonomy promoted health and quality of life in residential care. However, their autonomy was associated with a number of protective and restrictive individual and environmental factors, which influenced whether autonomy was achieved.

Are comprehensive and individually designed care and service plans for older people's home care a vision or a reality in Finland?

The global population is ageing and many older people want to continue to live in their own homes, supported by home-care services. The basis for comprehensive care is real-time care and service plans, but more knowledge is needed about these plans to ensure that older people benefit from individual and comprehensive home care. Our aim was to describe the contents of older home-care clients' care and service plans by using the Finnish Care Classification (FinCC), version 3.0, which includes the Finnish classification of nursing diagnoses (FiCND) and the Finnish classification of nursing interventions (FiCNI). The data were collected during spring 2018 from 71 anonymised care and service plans provided by 47 registered and practical nurses who worked for one government-funded home-care organisation in an urban region of Finland. We analysed the data using descriptive statistical methods. The documentation focused on daily activities, but was based on a narrow view of individual needs and comprehensive care planning. In addition, we found a statistically significant association between documented clients' needs (FiCND) and nursing interventions (FiCNI) in secretions, fluid balance, respiration and skin integrity. The client's age, gender, how long they had been receiving home care and the number of home visits they received each week were all associated with certain documented needs and interventions. Our findings provide new knowledge about inconsistent documentation related to clients' needs and nursing interventions. Collaboration between technical and home-care professionals is needed to develop and test specific content in the FinCC related to home care. The contents should also take into account the views of older people on how they want their care and services needs to be planned and delivered so that they can lead independent and fulfilling lives.

Is it time for a comprehensive approach in older home care clients' care planning in Finland?

BACKGROUND: Home-care services require access to high quality information. Apart from the provision of right-time organised planning of care and to document information about clients' needs, in home care, the care planning is intended to facilitate continuity and individual nursing through nursing documentation of the assessment of the client. AIMS: The aim was to describe the contents of older (+75 years) home-care clients' electronic care and service plans and to evaluate how the clients' resources have been taken into account. DESIGN AND METHODS: The data were collected from the care and service plans (n = 437) of home-care services during July 2010. The data were analysed by quantitative methods and by thematic content analysis. RESULTS: Based on the analysis, medication was the most reported component in all plans (92.7%); other commonly reported components were self-care (85.4%) and coping (78.0%). Components within respiratory, follow-up treatment, life cycle and health behaviour were forgotten. Most of the care and service plans were designed from the home-care professionals' point of view but the plans lacked the perspective of older clients. CONCLUSION: To be able to promote older home clients' ability to live at home, home-care planning needs to be individually designed and must take into account clients' needs and their perspectives regarding meaningful activities and social relationships. In addition, there is a need to develop a more comprehensive care planning system, based on the clients' individual needs and standards of care planning.