Physical Health Care for People with Severe Mental Illness: the Attitudes, Practices, and Training Needs of Nurses in Three Asian Countries.

People with severe mental illness (SMI) have considerable unmet physical health needs and an increased risk of early mortality. This cross-sectional survey utilized the Physical Health Attitude Scale (PHASe) to examine the attitudes, practices, and training needs of nurses towards physical health care of people with SMI in three Asian countries (Hong Kong, Japan, Qatar). Cross-country differences were explored and linear regression was used to investigate if nurses' attitudes and confidence were associated with their level of involvement in physical health care. A total of 481 questionnaires were returned. Hong Kong nurses were less involved in physical health care than those from Japan and Qatar. Nurses' attitudes and confidence were significant predictors of their participation in managing physical health. Compared with western countries, more nurses in this study felt that mental illness was a barrier to improving physical health. Three-quarters reported that they needed additional training in promoting cardiometabolic health. The perceived need for additional training in physical health care was held by Mental Health Nurses (MHN) irrespective of their type of nursing registration and nationality. Nurse educators and service providers should reconsider the physical health care training requirements of nurses working in mental health settings in order to improve the physical health of people with SMI.

Perception of nurse prescribing among nurses and psychiatrists in a developing country: A cross-sectional survey.

Nurse prescribing has the potential to improve patients' access to, and experiences of, treatment. The aim of the present study was to examine nurse and psychiatrist attitudes about this extended role in a developing country. We conducted a cross-sectional survey using a previously-used, 65-item, seven subscale measure of attitudes to nurse prescribing in mental health. We achieved a 79% response rate. The majority of participants had trained in developing countries where nurse prescribing has yet to be implemented. Across five subscales (general beliefs, impact, uses, training, and supervision), both groups reported positive attitudes about nurse prescribing. Both groups scored the training subscale particularly highly. Compared with psychiatrists, nurses were more confident about the range of clinical settings where nurse prescribing could be applied (e.g. acute inpatient and substance use). Although both groups had less favourable attitudes on the two subscales relating to clinical and legal responsibility, compared to nurses, psychiatrists were more undesirable. Although, overall, clinician attitudes do not seem to represent a barrier towards the potential implementation of nurse prescribing in the study setting, clarity about clinical and legal responsibility needs to be addressed.

Registration of randomized controlled trials in nursing journals.

BACKGROUND: Trial registration helps minimize publication and reporting bias. In leading medical journals, 96% of published trials are registered. The aim of this study was to determine the proportion of randomized controlled trials published in key nursing journals that met criteria for timely registration. METHODS: We reviewed all RCTs published in three (two general, one mental health) nursing journals between August 2011 and September 2016. We classified the included trials as: 1. Not registered, 2. Registered but not reported in manuscript, 3. Registered retrospectively, 4. Registered prospectively (before the recruitment of the first subject into the trial). 5. Timely registration (as 4 but the trial identification number is reported in abstract). RESULTS: We identified 135 trials published in the three included journals. The majority (n = 78, 58%) were not registered. Thirty-three (24%) were retrospectively registered. Of the 24 (18%) trials that were prospectively registered, 11 (8%) met the criteria for timely registration. CONCLUSIONS: There is an unacceptable difference in rates of trial registration between leading medical and nursing journals. Concerted effort is required by nurse researchers, reviewers and journal editors to ensure that all trials are registered in a timely way.

The prevalence of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) use in non-clinical populations: a systematic review protocol.

BACKGROUND: Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are new narcotic or psychotropic drugs that are not controlled by the United Nations drug convention that may pose a serious public health threat due to their wide availability for purchase on the internet and in so called "head shops." Yet, the extent of their global use remains largely unknown. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the prevalence of NPS use in non-clinical populations. METHODS: This is a systematic review of observational studies. Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), Cochrane Library, Lilacs, Scopus, Global Health, PsychINFO, Web of Science, and the World Health Organization (WHO) regional databases will be searched for eligible prevalence studies published between 2010 and 2016. Data from cross-sectional studies that report the prevalence of NPS use (one or more types) in participants (of any age) from censuses or probabilistic or convenience samples will be included. Data will be extracted from eligible publications, using a data extraction tool developed for this study. Visual and statistical approaches will be adopted instead of traditional meta-analytic approaches. DISCUSSION: This review will describe the distributions of various types of prevalence estimates of NPS use and explore the impact of different population groups and study-related and tempo-geographical variables on characteristics of these distributions over the period of 2010 to 2016. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42016037020.