Promoting speaking-up behaviours among nurses working in the care for older people: A scoping review.

AIM: To explore interventions employed to foster speaking-up behaviours of registered nurses (RNs) working in the care of older people. DESIGN: Scoping review. METHODS: The updated Joann Briggs Institute scoping review methodological guidelines were followed. DATA SOURCES: CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched. RESULTS: A total of 1691 titles and abstracts were screened, resulting in 11 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Analysis focused upon intervention types, methodologies, speaking up strategies, barriers and effectiveness. Education was the most used intervention. CONCLUSION: There is a lack of published research on successful interventions to promote speaking-up behaviours in the care of older people, particularly relating to poor care practices. Evidence of speaking-up interventions in the residential aged care setting is absent. This highlights the need to develop strategies to support the RN to lead and enable others to raise care concerns. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND/OR PATIENT CARE: Developing strategies that enable staff, care recipients and their families to speak up about care concerns is a vital future area for nursing practice development. Nursing leadership of such strategies is central to improving the quality of care for older people, particularly those living in residential aged care. IMPACT: Older people receiving care should feel respected and be treated humanely. Evidence suggests this is often not the case. This review found a paucity of interventions to promote speaking-up about poor care practices among RNs working in the care of older people. Future research needs to address this, to empower RNs and improve the care afforded to older people. REPORTING METHOD: The PRISMA-ScR (Tricco et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 169, 467-473, 2018) were adhered to throughout this scoping review. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: No patient or public contribution in this review.

Specialist early parenting intervention: Effectiveness of a novel nurse-led approach for rural families.

BACKGROUND: Rural Australian families report lower access to specialist early parenting services than urban families. To address the early parenting needs of rural families with children aged 0-3, a novel specialist-nursing early parenting service, Tresillian To You, was implemented for five rural communities in New South Wales, Australia. This study aimed to investigate the initial impact and reach of the service. METHODS: Convenience sampling was used to recruit 36 parents who attended the service. Of these, 34 completed structured pre-and-post intervention phone interviews. Additional data were collected from the parent and child health record. Data were imported into SPSS for descriptive and inferential data analysis. FINDINGS: All parent participants were mothers, with a mean age of 31.5 (SD 4.582). Sleep and settling was the primary reason for referral (78%, n = 28). Following service engagement, statistically significant improvements were seen in parent adjustment (95% CI = -1.71, -0.52, p < .001), parent comprehensibility (95% CI = -1.81, -0.42, p = .003), and parent perception of child sleep (95% CI = 16.3, 34.9, p < .001). Families from non-target communities (n = 15) reported a higher level of need at baseline, compared with families from target rural communities (n = 21). Following service engagement, a similar level of benefit was reported between both groups. DISCUSSION: Preliminary evidence suggests that this new service may be an effective method of providing specialist early parenting intervention for families in rural communities. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The provision of effective nurse-led specialist early child and family interventions may help to alleviate early parenting difficulty for rural families, leading to improvements in child and family outcomes.

Workforce strategies to address children's mental health and behavioural needs in rural, regional and remote areas: A scoping review.

INTRODUCTION: Children living in rural, regional and remote locations experience challenges to receiving services for mental illness and challenging behaviours. Additionally, there is a lack of clarity about the workforce characteristics to address the needs of this population. OBJECTIVE: To scope the literature on the rural, regional and remote child mental health and behavioural workforce and identify barriers and enabling mechanisms to mental health service provision. DESIGN: A scoping review utilising the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. A database search was undertaken using Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Scopus to identify papers published 2010-2023. Research articles reporting data on mental health workforce characteristics for children aged under 12 years, in rural, regional or remote locations were reviewed for inclusion. FINDINGS: Seven hundred and fifty-four papers were imported into Covidence with 22 studies being retained. Retained studies confirmed that providing services to meet the needs of children's mental health is an international challenge. DISCUSSION: The thematic analysis of the review findings highlighted four workforce strategies to potentially mitigate some of these challenges. These were: (1) The use of telehealth for clinical services and workforce upskilling; (2) Role shifting where non mental health professionals assumed mental health workforce roles; (3) Service structure strategies, and (4) Indigenous and rural cultural factors. CONCLUSION: A range of potential strategies exists to better meet the needs of children with mental health and behavioural issues. Adapting these to specific community contexts through co-design and production may enhance their efficacy.

Process mining the trajectories for adolescent-to-mother violence from longitudinal police and health service data.

AIM: The aim was to discover longitudinal trajectories and patterns of events preceding adolescent-to-mother family violence in a geographic locale in Australia. DESIGN: This was a retrospective case series. METHODS: Routinely collected administrative data were sourced and linked from police and health service electronic records for adolescents born between 1994 and 2006 who had been issued a legal action for a family violence-related offence (n = 775). A time-stamped log of events from birth (where available) was created. Process mining was employed to discover dominant events and trajectories in the log from birth until adolescents' first recorded offence against their mother. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Most adolescents in the case series offended against mothers (63%, n = 486). Trajectory analysis confirmed dominant early childhood events were repeated exposure to parental intimate partner violence (P-IPV), parental drug and/or alcohol use and neglect. During early adolescence, pathways towards adolescent-to-mother violence involved other offending, drug and/or alcohol use and mental health service contact. CONCLUSION: The trajectories evidenced provide a complex picture of the emergence of adolescent-to-mother violence. From an early intervention perspective, it was found that many children and mothers were identifiable from police records in early childhood, at an average age of 35 months. Responses to adolescent family violence need to acknowledge the impact of childhood trauma and emerging mental health problems, along with strategies to mitigate the effect of P-IPV on mother-to-child relationships. IMPACT: This is the first large-scale study to specifically examine trajectories from birth for adolescents who engage in violence towards mothers. The findings have important implications for the design and delivery of early intervention childhood services and interagency collaboration in nursing and midwifery services. In early adolescence, contact with mental health services represents an opportunity for screening and support interventions. This is an important preventive timepoint for family violence, adolescent drug and alcohol use and other offences.

The role of champions in leading domestic violence and abuse practice improvement in health care: A scoping review.

AIM: To describe and synthesize evidence for champions of domestic violence practice improvement in health care and highlight implications for leadership and nurse management. BACKGROUND: Globally, health care leaders have been tasked with improving service responses to domestic violence. Evidencing the role of champions, and how managers may harness champions in improving responses to domestic violence, is an important factor in successfully leading change in this field. EVALUATION: A scoping review was conducted using four electronic databases (Proquest, PubMed, Medline and PsycINFO). KEY ISSUES: Eleven studies were included. Champion characteristics, roles, and factors influencing their impact were distilled. Barriers to the success of champions were identified as were four aspects of the champion role: mentor and expert advice; communication and engagement; strategic advocacy, coordination and project leadership; personal and emotional support. CONCLUSIONS: The review highlighted that champions involved in domestic violence project implementation have unique aspect to their role, along with characteristics reported in the broader champion literature. As an emerging field, there is evidence that domestic violence champions play an important role in mentoring and supporting health care workers to effectively change their practice. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers and leaders need to understand the champion construct and the roles that champions enact to generate domestic violence and abuse system and practice change. Further research is required to provide guidance.

Pressure injuries and skin tone diversity in undergraduate nurse education: Qualitative perspectives from a mixed methods study.

AIMS: To, firstly, explore student and academic nurse perceptions of classroom content about the assessment and identification of pressure injuries across skin tone diversity and, secondly, to describe the impact of classroom content on student nurse understanding of pressure injury in people with dark skin tones. DESIGN: Qualitative case study employing focus groups and semi-structured interviews. METHODS: Five higher education institutions in the United Kingdom were purposively chosen. At each of the five-case sites, one focus group with student nurses and one semi-structured interview with a nurse academic were conducted between May 2018 and April 2019. The participants' narratives were transcribed verbatim and analysed via thematic analysis. RESULTS: Classroom learning was predominately framed through a white lens with white normativity being strongly reinforced through teaching and learning activities. This reinforcement of white normativity was evidenced through two main themes: (i) dominance of whiteness in the teaching and learning of pressure injuries in undergraduate nurse education and (ii) the impact and implications for student nurses of whiteness as the norm in pressure injury teaching. CONCLUSION: Nurses responsible for the design and delivery of teaching and learning experiences for nursing students need to ensure meaningful teaching and learning experiences. This learning should assist future nurses to interrogate their complicity in a system of white dominance. IMPACT: Nurse education delivered today influences and shapes nurses of the future. Nurses are the cornerstone of healthcare and play a significant role in the delivery of equitable healthcare. Nurse academics have a duty of care to inform and highlight health inequities in nursing and ultimately to enhance equity in care.

An aged life has less value: A qualitative analysis of moral disengagement and care failures evident in Royal Commission oral testimony.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To identify common themes about care failures in residential aged care as described from the perspectives of older people and their families in transcripts from hearings and submission to the Australian Royal Commission. These failures are explored through the lens of moral disengagement. BACKGROUND: Previous inquiries into care failures have highlighted widespread harm from inhumane care, caused by staff carelessness, indifference and callousness. In health care, limited consideration has been given to the moral engagement or disengagement of staff and the relationship of moral engagement with care failures. METHOD: Qualitative latent content analysis of 22 transcripts from the Royal Commission between March 2020-August 2020. Methods are reported using the SRQR. RESULTS: This paper presents one theme, Dehumanisation of the care process: An aged life has less value, from a larger study. Care failures relating to morally disengaged staff were found to be widespread and influenced by the environments created by organisations. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the need for further research to identify indicators of moral disengagement among staff and explore strategies to reduce or prevent moral disengagement within organisations trusted with providing care to older people. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Caregiving is necessarily associated with, and shaped by, moral dimensions. The erosion or disengagement of these moral dimensions among care staff reveals important aspects of residential aged care's lived experience. Studying dynamics within aged care facilities can provide a useful analytic lens for illuminating ways that residents and their family or those close to them, experience or are impacted by moral dimensions and behaviours.

Patient perspectives and experiences of sexual health conversations and cardiovascular disease: A qualitative study.

AIM: This study aimed to explore the experiences of individuals discussing sexual well-being with healthcare professions within the context of their cardiac illness to determine their sexual health information needs. BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and known to have a detrimental impact on sexual health. Despite sexual health being recognised as a fundamental component of well-being, it may be a neglected aspect of care within the context of cardiovascular disease. DESIGN: A qualitative exploratory study conducted in accordance with COREQ guidelines. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with participants (n = 13) aged between 30-77 years who had been diagnosed with a cardiovascular disease. Data were transcribed and subject to thematic analysis. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Analysis revealed two major themes-Sexual healthcare information and expectations: I expect them to tell me and Experiences of sexual adversity: it's really scary. Although participants expected and welcomed information in relation to their illness and sexual health, this was rarely received. Subsequently, when some participants experienced sexual adversity including erectile dysfunction, they felt anxious and distressed which impacted their intimated relationships. It was often when participants sought information associated with adversity that information was provided and this was primarily in relation to medication associated with assisting dysfunction. CONCLUSION: Individuals who have cardiovascular disease may require sexual health care. Nurses are well placed to provide information and education associated with cardiovascular disease and associated sexual well-being to promote positive outcomes for individuals and minimise distress around sexual adversity. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Findings highlight the importance of providing clear and accurate information about sexual well-being and function to patients experiencing cardiovascular disease. Provision of information should be considered an essential and routine aspect of care with patients being afforded opportunities to discuss concerns associated with their sexual well-being.

Embedding skin tone diversity into undergraduate nurse education: Through the lens of pressure injury.

OBJECTIVE: To explore health disparity in on-campus undergraduate nurse education through the analysis of teaching and teaching material exploring pressure injuries. BACKGROUND: As a discipline, nursing espouses ideologies of inclusion, equity and valuing diversity. However, little is known about how these ideologies translate into clinical care. Pressure injury prevention is a routine aspect of nursing care; yet, there is evidence of inequity in relation to clinical care and patient assessment, as people with darker skin tones have a higher prevalence of severe pressure injuries before detection of damage occurs. Despite limited literature being available surrounding the topic of pressure injuries and skin tone diversity, it remains the responsibility of nurse educators to address contemporary issues and health disparity within the nursing curriculum. DESIGN: A multiple method collective case study. The STROBE checklist was followed in reporting this study. METHODS: Documentary and observational data of lectures regarding pressure injuries were collected during 2017 and 2018 from five Higher Education Institutes in England delivering approved nursing undergraduate programmes. RESULTS: Documentary analysis confirmed all Higher Education Institutes overwhelmingly directed teaching and learning activities about pressure injury towards people with Caucasian skin tones. Observation of teaching indicated all teaching sessions only contained brief, separate and superficial information on people with pressure injuries and darker skin tones. There was no discursive language or awareness of colour or colour blindness. CONCLUSION: Radical critique of all teaching and learning activities needs to occur, to help explore, improve and meaningfully and authentically include diversity and inclusivity in nurse education, and in particular, how people across the skin tone spectrum are included and represented in teaching and learning activities. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Critical examination of current teaching practice is crucial to address disparity and ensure care for people with darker skin tones is optimised. Nurse educators have a responsibility to educate for the care needs of all, as the quality of nurse education has a direct impact on care delivery and health disparity. This paper highlights the importance of addressing skin tone diversity and offers the opportunity for reflective practice, not just in formal education, but in clinical settings by preceptors and senior staff.

The impact of caregiving on the health status of regional carers in Australia: Findings from a mixed-method study.

While it is known that informal carers provide the majority of caregiving in Australia, there remains limited understanding of the challenges that regional carers face in their caring role and the impact of the caregiving role on carer well-being. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to better understand the health status of caregivers as the person they care for was entering the National Disability Support Scheme. DESIGN: This is a mixed-methods study. SETTING: The study was undertaken in regional New South Wales, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-five carers were enrolled into the study. All lived in regional New South Wales. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The World Health Organization Well-being Index was used for quantitative data collection, and semi-structured interviews were undertaken for the collection of qualitative data. RESULT: Quantitative data indicated that carers from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds and those from low socio-economic status had significantly lower scores on the well-being index. Two key qualitative categories were evident describing carer's journey to resilience by (a) adjusting to reality predominantly through cognitive reframing strategies and (b) carers accessing external supports. CONCLUSION: The health status of regional carers who are predominantly women is experiencing low levels of well-being. While many of these carers have initiated successful coping responses to the challenges of caring, there is an urgent need to increase the supports available to this population. As the recent National Disability Support Scheme is embedded, it is of importance to monitor if there are improvements in the health status of carers over time.

Characteristics of people with pressure ulcers using one year's routinely collected data in a defined diverse community.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if meaningful patient characteristics pertaining to pressure ulcers (PU) can be derived from routinely collected community health data. METHODS: A retrospective cohort analysis of records was carried out. To provide a detailed dataset on PU for the community of interest, demographic, general medical and PU data were extracted from mandatory incident reports and audit of electronic and paper medical records. This study is reported in accordance with the RECORD Guidelines from the Equator Network. Adult patients were enrolled from a district nursing service in the target region (n=1085) during 2015. The target region was based on a geographical region bounded by a single postcode district (target region) consisting of 62,000 people of whom approximately 50,000 were adults, 3000 of whom were aged >75 years. RESULTS: The total number of recorded PUs was n=137 in 103 individuals. Data from mandatory incident reports was obtainable for nearly all variables. Electronic and paper medical records were less reliable due to missing data. CONCLUSION: Detailed characteristics of community-dwelling PU patients can be derived from routinely collected data, and provides various forms and levels of information which could feed into different projects. The use of mandatory reporting fields increases the level of reporting and reduces missing data. Data enriched with information from electronic and paper records could inform the addition of variables to mandatory forms to improve characterisation of community dwellers with PUs.

Pressure injuries in people with darker skin tones: A literature review.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: In this article, we aimed to explore the literature to ascertain what research evidence exists in relation to the identification of pressure injuries in people with dark skin tones. BACKGROUND: Pressure injuries development has been widely researched and documented; however, much of this work does not address ethnicity or race and assumes Caucasian-ness. Thus, the perceptions of people with dark skin tones and the influence of skin pigmentation on identification and management of pressure injuries is under examined. DESIGN: Literature review. METHODS: A comprehensive electronic database search was undertaken of PubMed, Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane and British Nursing Index (BNI) between 1990-July 2016. Alongside the electronic data, journals, books, papers from conferences, relevant national and international organisations and reference lists were also used to help source key studies. RESULTS: A search of the literature revealed 11 relevant articles. The foci of studies included the following: risk of sustaining a pressure injuries based on skin tones, identification of pressure injuries amongst people with dark skin tones, pressure injuries and place of care and socio-economic impact on pressure injuries development. Overall, findings indicate that people with darker skin tones are more likely to develop higher stage pressure injuries. Reasons for this are not fully elucidated; however, it may be associated with current skin assessment protocols being less effective for people who have darker skin tones resulting in early damage arising from pressure not being recognised. CONCLUSION: From the literature reviewed, it can be seen that there is a lack of guidance and evidence, and people with darker skin tones are more likely in comparison with people presenting as Caucasian to develop higher stage pressure injuries. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The current literature suggests a need for researchers and clinicians to consider skin tone variances rather than ethnicity when exploring comprehensive skin assessment.

The use of emotional intelligence capabilities in clinical reasoning and decision-making: A qualitative, exploratory study.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore clinical nurses' experiences of using emotional intelligence capabilities during clinical reasoning and decision-making. BACKGROUND: There has been little research exploring whether, or how, nurses employ emotional intelligence (EI) in clinical reasoning and decision-making. DESIGN: Qualitative phase of a larger mixed-methods study. METHODS: Semistructured qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of registered nurses (n = 12) following EI training and coaching. Constructivist thematic analysis was employed to analyse the narrative transcripts. RESULTS: Three themes emerged: the sensibility to engage EI capabilities in clinical contexts, motivation to actively engage with emotions in clinical decision-making and incorporating emotional and technical perspectives in decision-making. CONCLUSION: Continuing to separate cognition and emotion in research, theorising and scholarship on clinical reasoning is counterproductive. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Understanding more about nurses' use of EI has the potential to improve the calibre of decisions, and the safety and quality of care delivered.

Increasing nurses' emotional intelligence with a brief intervention.

BACKGROUND: Emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with a wide range of personal, professional and social benefits with numerous applications evident for nursing education and clinical practice. Despite growing support for increasing the focus on EI in nursing and nurse education, empirical evidence for the effectiveness of training to increase EI is sparse. The aim with this study was to test the effect of a brief EI training program for registered nurses. METHODS: We conducted a cross-site quasi-experimental study measuring nurses' EI pre- (T1) and three months post- (T2) EI training with a matched (untrained) control group (total n = 60). EI training consisted of a five-hour workshop, a 30-minute one-on-one feedback session, and an individualised follow-up reminder sent via SMS. RESULTS: Training resulted in a significant increase in EI scores over baseline levels for the trained group while scores for the control group did not increase. CONCLUSION: This pilot study has provided clear evidence of the applicability and efficacy of a low-cost training intervention for nursing staff in a real world setting.

Technical rationality and the decentring of patients and care delivery: A critique of 'unavoidable' in the context of patient harm.

In recent decades, debate on the quality and safety of healthcare has been dominated by a measure and manage administrative rationality. More recently, this rationality has been overlaid by ideas from human factors, ergonomics and systems engineering. Little critical attention has been given in the nursing literature to how risk of harm is understood and actioned, or how patients can be subjectified and marginalised through these discourses. The problem of assuring safety for particular patient groups, and the dominance of technical forms of rationality, has seen the word 'unavoidable' used in connection with intractable forms of patient harm. Employing pressure injury policy as an exemplar, and critically reviewing notions of risk and unavoidable harm, we problematise the concept of unavoidable patient harm, highlighting how this dominant safety rationality risks perverse and taken-for-granted assumptions about patients, care processes and the nature of risk and harm. In this orthodoxy, those who specify or measure risk are positioned as having more insight into the nature of risk, compared to those who simply experience risk. Driven almost exclusively as a technical and administrative pursuit, the patient safety agenda risks decentring the focus from patients and patient care.

Application of meta-summary to derive a measurement instrument from the literature: a method exemplar.

BACKGROUND: Measurement tools are a common method to collect data in observational and survey research. Nurse researchers have developed numerous scales and instruments, many derived from published literature. However, few studies report systematic or replicable approaches to analysing the literature from which measures were derived. This is a significant challenge to construct validity. AIM: To provide a method exemplar of meta-summary and categorical factor analysis to refine scale items and establish construct definition. DISCUSSION: A rigorous method for deriving items from the literature is largely absent from nursing literature. This exemplar addresses the often-cited limitation of scales that authors rarely assure content validity before experts assess their newly derived scales. CONCLUSION: Without sufficient methodological rigour, practitioners and researchers must speculate about the content validity of newly derived instruments. Meta-summary provides a useful approach to developing scales from the literature. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The method detailed here is of use when deriving measurement instruments from the literature. It provides a systematic and replicable strategy that assures construct validity.

Pain associated with pressure injury: A qualitative study of community-based, home-dwelling individuals.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to provide deep insights into the pain associated with pressure injuries in home-dwelling individuals using narrative accounts. BACKGROUND: Pressure injuries or pressure ulcers are burdensome and costly. Prevalence data, surveys and systematic reviews demonstrate that pain associated with pressure injury is widespread, but voices of home-dwelling patients have remained largely unheard. DESIGN: Concurrent mixed methods case study of a UK community of approximately 50,000 adults. METHODS: Qualitative interviews, conducted in 2016, of 12 home-dwelling adult participants with a current pressure injury (n = 10), or a recently healed pressure injury (n = 2). FINDINGS: Pain had an adverse impact on activities of daily living, mobility and sleep. Participants described days that were clouded in pain; a pain they felt was poorly understood and often out of control. Thematic content analysis revealed two major themes; these are: Poorly controlled pain: "I just want the pain to go away"; and, Uncertainty for the future: "it almost seems insurmountable." CONCLUSION: Findings of our study support the need to develop an appropriate assessment tool for pressure injury patients in the community to enable healthcare professionals and patients to recognize and manage pressure injury-related pain effectively.

The role of emotion in clinical decision making: an integrative literature review.

BACKGROUND: Traditionally, clinical decision making has been perceived as a purely rational and cognitive process. Recently, a number of authors have linked emotional intelligence (EI) to clinical decision making (CDM) and calls have been made for an increased focus on EI skills for clinicians. The objective of this integrative literature review was to identify and synthesise the empirical evidence for a role of emotion in CDM. METHODS: A systematic search of the bibliographic databases PubMed, PsychINFO, and CINAHL (EBSCO) was conducted to identify empirical studies of clinician populations. Search terms were focused to identify studies reporting clinician emotion OR clinician emotional intelligence OR emotional competence AND clinical decision making OR clinical reasoning. RESULTS: Twenty three papers were retained for synthesis. These represented empirical work from qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches and comprised work with a focus on experienced emotion and on skills associated with emotional intelligence. The studies examined nurses (10), physicians (7), occupational therapists (1), physiotherapists (1), mixed clinician samples (3), and unspecified infectious disease experts (1). We identified two main themes in the context of clinical decision making: the subjective experience of emotion; and, the application of emotion and cognition in CDM. Sub-themes under the subjective experience of emotion were: emotional response to contextual pressures; emotional responses to others; and, intentional exclusion of emotion from CDM. Under the application of emotion and cognition in CDM, sub-themes were: compassionate emotional labour - responsiveness to patient emotion within CDM; interdisciplinary tension regarding the significance and meaning of emotion in CDM; and, emotion and moral judgement. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians' experienced emotions can and do affect clinical decision making, although acknowledgement of that is far from universal. Importantly, this occurs in the in the absence of a clear theoretical framework and educational preparation may not reflect the importance of emotional competence to effective CDM.

Student nurses' knowledge and attitudes towards domestic violence: results of survey highlight need for continued attention to undergraduate curriculum.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To gain a comprehensive understanding of undergraduate nursing student attitudes and views towards domestic violence, and employ the findings to inform undergraduate curriculum development. BACKGROUND: Nurses have an important role in identifying people who are victims of domestic violence through screening and facilitating their access to assistance and support. Undergraduate nursing education is key to shaping attitudes and facilitating the development of a comprehensive understanding of domestic violence. Little research has been undertaken exploring nursing students' attitudes towards domestic violence. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a three-year Bachelor of Nursing programme across three campuses of a regional university in NSW, Australia. Students completed a pen and paper survey during class time and descriptive and comparative analysis was undertaken. RESULTS: The majority of respondents were female, first year students females aged 17-26 years. Many students understood the nature and consequences of domestic violence, yet others across the course of the programme demonstrate attitudes that reflect a lack of understanding and misconceptions of domestic violence. Stereotypical and gendered attitudes that normalise violence within intimate partner relationships and sustain victim-blaming attitudes were evident across the cohort. CONCLUSIONS: It is important for nurses to understand the relationship between exposure to violence and women's ill health, and be able to respond appropriately. Undergraduate programmes need to highlight the important role of nurses around domestic violence and address stereotypical conceptions about domestic violence. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Continued effort is required to address domestic violence in undergraduate nursing education so that nursing graduates understand the association between violence exposure and poor health and are able to assess exposure and respond appropriately in the clinical environment.