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Using unfolding case studies to develop critical thinking for Graduate Entry Nursing students: an educational design research study

Graduate Entry Nursing (GEN) programmes have been introduced as another entry point to nurse registration. In the development of a new GEN programme, a problem-based approach to learning was used to develop cr...

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Knowledge and associated factors of healthcare professionals in detecting patient-ventilator asynchrony using waveform analysis at intensive care units of the federal public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2023

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Gender sensitivity in nursing practice: assessing the impact of childhood experiences of domestic violence and perceptions of sexism among healthcare providers on their gender sensitivity

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Fostering green transformational leadership: the influence of green educational intervention on nurse managers’ green behavior and creativity

This study aimed to investigate the influence of green transformational leadership educational intervention on nurse managers’ green behavior and creativity.

Experiences of formal caregivers of elderly inpatients with physical disabilities in China: a qualitative study

To explore the views and experiences of formal caregivers caring for older inpatients with physical disabilities.

The early career resilience experience of generation Z newly graduated registered nurses in standardized training in the emergency department: a qualitative study in Shanghai

The period of standardized training is a transitional stage when Generation Z newly graduated registered nurses (Gen Z NGRNs) change their role from student to nurse. Affected by the COVID-19, they lack clinic...

Nursing categories’ perceptions of the practice environment and quality of care in North West Province: a cross-sectional survey design

There is a substantial amount of literature on the perception of the practice environment and quality of care as perceived by registered nurses and community services nurses in South Africa and worldwide, but ...

How does psychosocial safety climate cross-level influence work engagement and job burnout: the roles of organization-based self-esteem and psychological detachment

Existing researches on nurses’ work engagement and job burnout have mostly stayed at the individual level, and limited researches test the cross-level effects of psychosocial safety climate (PSC). The study ai...

The relationship between nurses’ moral competency and missed nursing care: a descriptive-correlational study

When any aspect of patient care is overlooked or delayed, it is known as Missed Nursing Care (MNC), leading to adverse events such as medication errors, infections, increased mortality rates, and poor prognosi...

Flemish critical care nurses’ experiences regarding the influence of work-related demands on their health: a descriptive interpretive qualitative study

Critical care nurses (CCNs) around the globe face other health challenges compared to their peers in general hospital nursing. Moreover, the nursing workforce grapples with persistent staffing shortages. In li...

Differences in the knowledge, attitudes, and needs of caregivers and healthcare providers regarding palliative care: a cross-sectional investigation in pediatric settings in China

Countries abroad have implemented pediatric palliative treatment for several years; however, complete pediatric palliative treatment guidelines and legal guidance remain lacking in China, making the implementa...

Multi-stage optimization strategy based on contextual analysis to create M-health components for case management model in breast cancer transitional care: the CMBM study as an example

None of the early M-Health applications are designed for case management care services. This study aims to describe the process of developing a M-health component for the case management model in breast cancer...

Prevalence of depression and associated factors among primary caregivers of adult cancer patients, Sidama region Southern Ethiopia: cross-sectional study

The effect of cancer diagnosis affects the psychological well-being of the caregivers of cancer patients and results in a risk of psychiatric morbidity. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and associa...

Patient perspectives on the role of orthopedic nurse practitioners: a cross-sectional study

The inclusion of nurse practitioners (NPs) specializing in orthopedics shows potential for improving the quality of care for orthopedic patients. A critical aspect of assessing the feasibility and acceptance o...

Alone and together: registered nurses’ experiences of work satisfaction in municipal home healthcare

The need for advanced home healthcare (HHC) is expected to increase, with registered nurses (RNs) as key figures. Given the difficulties recruiting and retaining RNs in the HHC sector, understanding their work...

The effect of educational application in nursing internship clinical training on cognitive and functional skills and students’ satisfaction

Clinical education plays an essential role in shaping the nursing identity and is one of the central elements in the education of nursing students. Today, with the advancement of novel technologies, utilizing ...

Compliance with oral nutritional supplements and its influencing factors in postoperative patients with digestive tract tumors: a cross-sectional study

Oral nutritional supplements are one of the preferred methods of nutritional support for postoperative patients. This study aims to investigate the current status of oral nutritional supplements compliance in ...

Assessing nurses’ professional competency: a cross-sectional study in Palestine

Evaluating nurses’ professional competence is critical for ensuring high-quality patient care. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the nurses’ professional competence level and to identify differences base...

Dyadic effects of financial toxicity and social support on the fear of cancer recurrence in breast cancer patients and caregivers: an actor–partner interdependence mediation model

In this study, the actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) was applied to breast cancer patients and their caregivers to assess the factors that affect the fear of cancer recurrence. In particul...

The knowledge, attitude and behavior of ICU nurses regarding ICU-acquired weakness: a cross-sectional survey

Intensive care unit-acquired weakness (ICU-AW) is very common in ICU patients. It is important to understand the status quo of knowledge, attitude and behavior of ICU nurses about ICU-AW. This survey aimed to ...

Transitional care for older persons with need of geriatric rehabilitation nursing interventions

The literature review notes that people in need of care from Rehabilitation Programs do not always see their continuity ensured.

Correction: Nurses’ and patients’ perceptions of physical health screening for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a qualitative study

The original article was published in BMC Nursing 2024 23 :321

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The World Health Organization urged governments to prioritize the health and work well-being of nursing staff by promoting a positive working environment. A safe and healthy physical and psychosocial work envi...

Employing a serious game intervention to promote adolescent school children’s perceptions of nursing and midwifery professions

To test a serious game intervention about nursing and midwifery perceptions among adolescent school children.

Exploring the relationship between cyberloafing and innovativeness among nurses in research hospitals: a cross-sectional study in Turkey

Although cyberloafing, which refers to employees' use of the internet for private purposes outside of work, is seen as a negative behavior; Positive effects on areas such as individual development, learning op...

Experience and training needs of nurses in military hospital on emergency rescue at high altitude: a qualitative meta-synthesis

Nurses play an important role in the treatment of war wounds on the plateau, and they face multiple challenges and a variety of needs in their caregiving process. This study aimed to systematically integrate a...

The factors of job crafting in emergency nurses: regression models versus qualitative comparative analysis

Job crafting is defined as a series of proactive behaviors exhibited by employees in order to balance work resources and needs, which has a significant positive impact on the nurses. It is necessary to find th...

Workplace access, burnout, and prescription drug misuse among Korean hospital nurses: a cross-sectional study

Prescription drug misuse has been identified as a global issue of concern. Nurses’ prescription drug misuse is linked to personal health problems and impaired nursing care. This study explored the level of Sou...

Exploring presence practices: a study of unit managers in a selected Provincial Hospital in Free State Province

Nursing presence depends on an individual’s belief system, truths, sensory experience, professional skills, and active listening. Thus, one may assume that presence occurs when nurses care for patients in a ki...

A scale for measuring nursing digital application skills: a development and psychometric testing study

The adoption of digitization has emerged as a new trend in the advancement of healthcare systems. To ensure high-quality care, nurses should possess sufficient skills to assist in the digital transformation of...

Development and initiation of a preceptor program to improve midwifery and nursing clinical education in sub-saharan Africa: protocol for a mixed methods study

Expanding the quality and quantity of midwifery and nursing clinical preceptors is a critical need in many sub-Saharan educational settings to strengthen students’ clinical learning outcomes, and ultimately to...

The moderating role of work environment in the relationship between proactive personality and personal growth initiative among nurses: a cross-sectional study

Personal growth initiative (PGI) is regarded as a meaningful concept with potential value at both the individual and organizational levels, but little is known about the factors that contribute to nurses’ PGI....

Pathways linking workplace violence and suicidal ideation/non-suicidal self-injury among nurse staff: the mediating role of loneliness and depressive symptoms

Nurses face disproportionately high rates of suicidal ideation and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The role of workplace violence, loneliness, and depressive symptoms in exacerbating these issues is poorly un...

Barriers and outcomes of therapeutic communication between nurses and patients in Africa: a scoping review

Therapeutic communication (TC) promotes effective patient care, emotional wellbeing, and improves patient outcomes. The purpose of this review was to synthesise evidence on barriers and outcomes of TC between ...

Abusive supervision and nursing students’ intention to leave the nursing profession: a moderated mediation model of emotional exhaustion and the nurse-patient relationship

Exploration of the relationship between nursing students’ abusive supervision and their future intention to leave the nursing profession before completing the final clinical practicum is critical to the issue ...

Validation of the Chinese version of the Oslo-3 Social Support Scale among nursing students: a study based on Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory models

Nursing students are encountering a range of health issues. Assessing social support is a key component in most questionnaire surveys related to health status, aiming to investigate the relationships and mecha...

Development of a training program prototype to enhance implementation leadership competencies and behaviours of Chinese unit nurse managers: a qualitative descriptive study

Unit nurse managers hold essential positions that can facilitate implementation of evidence-based practice. Studies showed that nurse managers in China lacked competencies and behaviours necessary to lead evid...

The impact of negative cognitive bias on NSSI: mediating non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies

Individuals may be more likely to engage in NSSI due to negative cognitive bias, while the use of negative emotional regulation mechanisms may further contribute to NSSI. Currently, there is a dearth of studie...

Impact of a comprehensive rehabilitation palliative care program on the quality of life of patients with terminal cancer and their informal caregivers: a quasi-experimental study

Palliative care schemes, which include pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support and rehabilitation, aim to boost patients’ quality of life, ease the burden and anxiety of informal caregivers, and...

Factors associated with work engagement among specialist nurses in china: a cross-sectional study

The positive impacts of work engagement among specialist nurses on retention, organizational commitment, and quality of care are well-documented. However, there is a lack of research on the specific difference...

Correction: Analysis of cybersickness in virtual nursing simulation: a German longitudinal study

The original article was published in BMC Nursing 2024 23 :187

Process evaluation of the implementation of the ABC method, an intervention for nurses dealing with challenging behaviour of patients with brain injury

Introducing new working methods is common in healthcare organisations. However, implementation of a new method is often suboptimal. This reduces the effectiveness of the innovation and has several other negati...

Nurses, non-nurse healthcare providers, and clients’ perspectives, encounters, and choices of nursing gender in Tanzania: a qualitative descriptive study

A growing share of male nurses in the nursing profession in Tanzania has changed the trend of diversity of nursing gender. This might have created a divergent perspective within the communities. Therefore, the...

The experiences of patients with COVID-19 and their relatives from receiving professional home care nursing: a qualitative content analysis

To overcome of patients with COVID-19 over the capacity of hospitals and mild to moderate severity of the disease in most cases, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

The mediating effect of pregnancy adaptation between family support and maternal-fetal bonding: a cross-sectional study

Establishing a nurturing bond with the unborn child is essential for expectant mothers throughout pregnancy. While the influence of family support and pregnancy adaptation on maternal-fetal bonding is evident,...

Emotional intelligence and self-esteem among Saudi Arabian and Indian nursing students: findings from two countries

Understanding the emotional intelligence (EI) and self-esteem of Indian and Saudi nursing students is important because their future nurse–patient relationships may be influenced by factors related to their un...

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Why Nursing Research Matters

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1 Author Affiliation: Director, Magnet Recognition Program®, American Nurses Credentialing Center, Silver Spring, Maryland.
PMID: 33882548
DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000001005

Increasingly, nursing research is considered essential to the achievement of high-quality patient care and outcomes. In this month's Magnet® Perspectives column, we examine the origins of nursing research, its role in creating the Magnet Recognition Program®, and why a culture of clinical inquiry matters for nurses. This column explores how Magnet hospitals have built upon the foundation of seminal research to advance contemporary standards that address some of the challenges faced by healthcare organizations around the world. We offer strategies for nursing leaders to develop robust research-oriented programs in their organizations.

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Anne Mulhall , MSc, PhD
Independent Training and Research Consultant West Cottage, Hook Hill Lane Woking, Surrey GU22 0PT, UK

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Why has research-based practice become so important and why is everyone talking about evidence-based health care? But most importantly, how is nursing best placed to maximise the benefits which evidence-based care can bring?

Part of the difficulty is that although nurses perceive research positively, 2 they either cannot access the information, or cannot judge the value of the studies which they find. 3 This journal has evolved as a direct response to the dilemma of practitioners who want to use research, but are thwarted by overwhelming clinical demands, an ever burgeoning research literature, and for many, a lack of skills in critical appraisal. Evidence-Based Nursing should therefore be exceptionally useful, and its target audience of practitioners is a refreshing move in the right direction. The worlds of researchers and practitioners have been separated by seemingly impenetrable barriers for too long. 4

Tiptoeing in the wake of the movement for evidence-based medicine, however, we must ensure that evidence-based nursing attends to what is important for nursing. Part of the difficulty that practitioners face relates to the ambiguity which research, and particularly “scientific” research, has within nursing. Ambiguous, because we need to be clear as to what nursing is, and what nurses do before we can identify the types of evidence needed to improve the effectiveness of patient care. Then we can explore the type of questions which practitioners need answers to and what sort of research …

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Published: 24 June 2015

Nursing research: Nurses know best

Kendall Powell 1

Nature volume 522 , pages 507–509 ( 2015 ) Cite this article

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The time spent at a patient's bedside makes nurses the perfect people to pursue potent quality-of-life research.

As an oncology nurse for patients with cancer, John Merriman noticed a striking variation in his patients' ability to concentrate after undergoing radiation treatment. Many people brought stacks of books for their hospital stays, but only some could make it through all of their reading. Several people struggled to focus even on short magazine articles.

The more he thought about these cognitive differences, the more he realized that, if he wanted to find the cause — or develop possible interventions — he would need to do some doctoral-level research. When a research mentor in his nursing programme at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), mentioned that she had a data set from cancer patients that included self-reported attention scores and corresponding blood samples, Merriman knew what the topic of his PhD dissertation would be.

“This would give me a way to look at this variability I had seen clinically using the tools of research,” says Merriman, who is now a postdoctoral cancer researcher at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. “I was hooked at that point.”

As a registered nurse who also holds a PhD, Merriman is one of a small but growing number of nurse scientists worldwide. Many, like him, come to research because they see a problem in the clinic that needs a research-based solution. Nurse scientists arrive at a research-career path through a variety of trajectories; historically, many have begun their doctoral work mid- to late-career, after years of seeing patients. But that trend is shifting as leaders in the field encourage younger nurses to enter PhD programmes soon after earning a nursing degree and registered nurse certification.

“We're the new kid on the block in academia,” says Quinn Grundy, a PhD candidate in social and behavioural sciences at UCSF. She entered her programme directly after completing a four-year nursing degree at the University of Alberta in Canada, and says that the PhD will help to provide her with flexible career choices because nursing research is a highly employable field. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2022, more than half a million jobs for registered nurses will be added to the US workforce. Nurse scientists, in particular, are sought by several sectors, including academia, health-care organizations and the biomedical industry.

Rapid translation and adoption of nursing-research findings can quickly change bedside practice.

Although nurses have been engaged in research for generations, the field in the United States only began to recognize the need for more formal-training programmes around 1986. In the same year, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) was created in Bethesda, Maryland, as part of the US National Institutes of Health. Other nations have followed suit: in Canada, for instance, the first PhDs in nursing were awarded in the early 1990s. Employment opportunities for nurse researchers who hold PhDs abound, with posts available in the military, academia, hospital-based research organizations and health-care-policy think tanks. Many nurse scientists work at university nursing or medical schools, or at large clinical-research centres that are affiliated with them.

Outside these sectors, some nurse scientists work for pharmaceutical and medical-device companies to help to run clinical trials. Others head up scientific programmes at government organizations, including drug regulators and infectious-disease agencies or national health administrations. Health-management and insurance companies, as well as non-profit advocacy groups such as the American Heart Association, also seek nurse scientists to oversee their research programmes. In academia, nurse scientists are in high demand as lecturers, thanks to globally low numbers of nursing faculty members who are needed to train the next generation.

Nurse scientists pursue research that spans molecular biology, physiology, medical imaging, and public health and policy. Nurses who want to engage in research will need to identify a relevant PhD programme and determine how best to balance nursing practice with their studies. Postdoctoral-research experience is not required for many of the nurse-scientist careers listed above, but it is necessary for nurse scientists who want to run their own research groups at research-intensive universities.

Some nurse scientists find it difficult to make time to continue seeing patients in the clinic, whereas others manage to make it work synergistically. Rapid translation and adoption of nursing-research findings can quickly change bedside practice and bring nurse scientists immense gratification. With various career options from which to choose, the common thread that bonds nurse scientists is a focus on studies that improve patient care and, ultimately, quality of life.

Tests to treatments

After they receive a PhD, some nurse scientists give up seeing patients to run full-time research programmes. But in many cases, their research studies or administrative duties keep them in close contact with clinical practice. As a senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, Kimberly Alexander oversees the nursing school's cancer-nursing curriculum, while also investigating how genetics influence the symptoms and outcomes of cancer treatments. Similarly, Anna Axelin, a neonatal-care nurse at the University of Turku in Finland, no longer works at the bedside, yet her research on providing intensive care for premature babies keeps her close to patients and their families, and on the hospital ward weekly.

Patricia Grady, a neuroscientist and director of the NINR (see 'The price of quality of life' ), says that nurse scientists who wish to remain in the clinic must find ways to efficiently blend a research question with a well-matched patient population. US Navy commander Jason McGuire, a certified nurse anaesthetist who is stationed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, has managed to do just that. He chose to research a condition that affects veterans who are undergoing general anaesthesia for surgery.

In McGuire's work with combat veterans, he noticed a clinical phenomenon that was missing from the scientific literature: his patients experienced 'emergence delirium' at a much higher rate than did the general population. With this condition, veterans wake up from anaesthesia in a confused and combative state. It can lead to physical and cognitive complications, both during recovery and later in life. “I wanted to find out what the incidence was in our military population and how we can decrease the chance of it happening,” says McGuire, chief of nursing science and clinical inquiry at the Walter Reed centre.

In 2008, the Navy considered McGuire's question important enough to send him to get a PhD at the University of San Diego, California. Gaps in scientific knowledge of nursing practices are common, and often become dissertation topics for nurse scientists. Like many nurses, McGuire chose to pursue the applied side of his research question. “Am I really going to figure out why this delirium occurs? Or can I move a little quicker, to something that will decrease the incidence?” he asked.

Now, four years after receiving his PhD, he is beginning a randomized controlled trial to test whether giving a specific sedation medication during surgery — before patients enter recovery — can reduce the risk of emergence delirium. By the end of the 3-year, 370-patient study, McGuire might have devised a new standard of surgical care for combat veterans.

Such immediate application of research findings to clinical practice is particular to nursing science and contrasts sharply with related fields, such as medicine, dentistry or veterinary science, in which translation of results into clinical interventions and treatments can take decades. This rapid application makes nursing research especially attractive to researchers who want to see their work improve lives right away.

Quick adoption comes largely through the close ties that many nurse scientists keep with their colleagues who work at the bedside. Of the nearly three million registered nurses in the United States, Grady estimates that only 1% are nurse scientists. In 2013, the US Health Resources and Services Administration reported that almost two-thirds of nursing schools had restricted student enrolments because of faculty shortages (see go.nature.com/fwcli1 ). “We need more of a critical mass,” she says.

It is clear that increasing the number of nurse researchers would help to improve patient care. In the decade that Axelin spent in neonatal intensive-care units (NICUs), she noticed a poignant, recurring pattern: during painful procedures such as an intravenous insertion, mothers would weep outside in the hallway while their babies cried inside the hospital room. “It's common practice to ask parents to step outside. But they're both crying,” she says. “I thought, 'There must be some solution'.”

Her dissertation research found that parents who held their premature babies during medical procedures alleviated the children's pain as effectively as did the standard long-accepted protocol — giving babies a sugar solution before a procedure. Within a year of that discovery, almost every NICU in Finland was using Axelin's parental-hold technique, and she had received calls from hospitals in Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Estonia and Canada that all wanted to implement it.

In nursing research, it's all about a holistic view of the patients we work with every day.

“It's important for nurses to know and notice that they can make a change in care,” says Axelin. “In nursing research, it's all about a holistic view of the patients we work with every day.”

Alexander echoes that sentiment, emphasizing that nursing science is not about discovering new therapies or drugs to treat a particular disease. Rather, it focuses on understanding people's responses to treatments and alleviating symptoms to improve quality of life. Her research aims to find ways to tailor nursing care to each patient who has cancer.

Grady says that the NINR's vision for nursing science is to generate a knowledge base that will improve clinical patient care and help to shape US health-care policy. Although many nursing interventions might seem obvious in hindsight — such as parents holding their babies in the NICU — these care procedures must still be tested under rigorous conditions to prove that they lead to better patient outcomes than do current standards of care.

In some ways, nursing science is playing catch-up as researchers race to fill in holes left in the scientific literature — for instance, how transport by helicopter might alter a trauma-patient's physiology. The field is also poised to determine how nursing care might be delivered to patients now — and in the future — through smartphones and other forms of digital technology.

In the thick of it

The US military has been a front-runner in training nurse scientists, with the US Army, Navy and Air Force each sending one or two nurses for doctoral work each year for the past decade. Although military nurse scientists run research programmes that are designed to address military medicine, situations and populations, their work spans a wide swathe of disciplines, from physiology to public health. Navy Commander Virginia Blackman, a critical-care nurse scientist at the Walter Reed centre, studies how different pain-management protocols used on trauma patients in the field might affect their long-term development of chronic pain or post-traumatic stress disorder. Like many nurse scientists in hospitals, Blackman advises staff nurses on how best to convert the latest research findings into practice.

As a public-health nurse scientist in the US Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Hatzfeld has worked on projects as diverse as boosting mammogram rates in military wives and — while deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan — designing protocols for treating blast-fragment wounds. Now based at Fort Detrick, Maryland, she manages the Department of Defense's 'en route' care research portfolio, which focuses on improving care for patients during air or ground transport.

“Some days, it's a little bit like managing somebody's cheque book,” Hatzfeld says of her job as a programme manager: she decides which projects to fund. “But I love it because it's an opportunity to strategically guide the future of en route care.”

She says that nursing usually attracts those who want to take care of others and contribute to making the world a better place — not necessarily those who see themselves pursuing a doctoral degree. But nurses have important roles in research, she says. They bring unique perspectives to research teams because they are usually closest to the final stages of a study, when an intervention is delivered to a patient or when carers are helping someone to cope with side effects. “There are questions that we need asked and answered that are specific to nursing,” Hatzfeld says. “If we don't do it, then we are allowing physicians or other disciplines to ask those questions with what might not be the right perspective or approach.”

Box 1: The price of quality of life

One of the least known of the 27 US National Institutes of Health (NIH) centres, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) operates on an annual budget of about US$144 million. That budget has nearly tripled in the past 20 years, but it is a tiny slice compared with the almost $5 billion that the NIH gives to the National Cancer Institute, for example. About 10% of NINR funds support a small internal programme of seven research groups, and the rest of the budget is given in the form of grants to fund external research and training programmes.

Unlike the many other institutes, however, the NINR is not focused on a particular disease area, life stage or organ system. “Our science is primarily clinical research, but we are what can be described as disease-agnostic,” says Patricia Grady, director of the NINR in Bethesda, Maryland. “It's all about the science of what causes symptoms, how can you intervene and how can you help people live with chronic symptoms.”

NINR-funded research has uncovered differences in how men and women respond to pain medicine; developed better tools for end-of-life and palliative care; and led to programmes that help adolescents to better manage their diabetes.

Grady says that both the evolution of health-care delivery and the ageing of populations worldwide ensures nursing researchers a bright future.

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Powell, K. Nursing research: Nurses know best. Nature 522 , 507–509 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7557-507a

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How to read a scientific article

Reading scientific/scholarly research articles may seem overwhelming and confusing at the beginning of your academic journey. These steps provide guidance on how to read a scientific article. Do not approach a scientific article like a textbook and highlight/take notes throughout the article. Taking notes will keep you focused and help you work towards comprehending the article.

1. Skim the article. First, don't try to comprehend the entire article at this point; get a basic overview. You don’t have to read in order; the discussion/conclusions will help you determine if the article is relevant to your research. You might then continue on to the Introduction. Pay attention to the structure of the article, headings, and figures.

2. Understand unknown vocabulary. Go through the article and highlight words and phrases you do not understand. For some words or phrases, you may understand the context in which it is used, but for others, assistance from a medical or scientific dictionary may be needed. Subject-specific dictionaries are available online. PubMed also has a medical dictionary .

3. Identify the structure of the article and work on your comprehension . Most journals use an IMRD structure; An abstract followed by: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. These sections usually contain conventional features. If you learn to look for these features you will read and comprehend articles more quickly.

Abstract: gives an overview of the article and often contains four pieces of information: purpose or rationale of study (why they did it); methodology (how they did it); results (what they found); conclusion (what it means). Start with reading the abstract to make sure this is what you are looking for. If it is, then spend time reading the whole article.
Introduction: gives background information about the topic and sets out specific questions to be addressed by the authors. You can skim through the introduction if you are already familiar with the paper’s topic.
Methods: gives technical details of how the experiment was carried out and serves as a “how-to” manual if you wanted to replicate the same experience. This is another section you may want to skim unless you wish to identify the methods used by the researchers or if you intend to replicate the research yourself.
Results: the meat of a scientific article and contain all of the data. Spend time looking at the graphs, pictures, and tables as these figures will contain most of the data.
Discussion: the authors’ opportunity to state their opinions. Discussions are the authors’ interpretations and not necessarily facts. It is still a good place for you to gather ideas about what kind of research questions are still unanswered in the field and what types of questions you might want your own research project to address.

4. Read the bibliography/references section. Reading the references may lead to other useful resources. References also provide resources to help the reader understand subject terminology, main concepts, and major researchers.

5. Reflect on the article and draw your own conclusions . As you are reading, record any questions that come to mind. They may be answered later on in the article, or you may have stumbled upon something that the authors did not consider. Here are some questions you may ask:

Do I understand the terminology?
Am I spending too much time on the less important parts of this article?
Do I need to question the credibility of this research? (Especially for articles found using Google)
What problem does the research address and why is it important?
How do these results relate to my research interests?

6. Read the article a second time in chronological order. Reading the article a second time will reinforce your overall understanding. You may even start to make connections to other articles that you have read on this topic.

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Role of Nursing in Patient Safety

First Online: 08 June 2024

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Cynthia A. Oster 3 &
Kristen A. Oster 4

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Patient safety is considered one of the central issues in the healthcare environment. The nursing profession was founded to protect, promote, and improve health for all ages of patients. Florence Nightingale, often considered the founder of modern nursing, advocated for safe patient care. Nurses are indispensable in the work to improve patient safety and quality in healthcare. Efforts to detect and remedy error-producing defects in the healthcare system are dependent on the professional nurse. This chapter will discuss the historical background of nursing and patient safety, evolution of nursing in promoting patient safety, and the essentiality of nursing to patient safety.

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Oster, C.A., Oster, K.A. (2024). Role of Nursing in Patient Safety. In: Oster, C.A., Braaten, J.S. (eds) The Nexus between Nursing and Patient Safety. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53158-3_5

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The National Institute of Nursing Research: A Glance Back, and a Vision for the Future

Over thirty years ago, a committed group of nurse scientists witnessed the end of one journey, and the beginning of another. In 1986, the Unite States Congress established the National Center of Nursing Research (NCNR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This was the culmination of a long and difficult effort on the part of these visionaries to advocate, convince, and cajole those policymakers at the highest levels of government into recognizing that nursing science was an essential component of the health research enterprise. While some in the scientific community remained skeptical, nursing science now had a foothold at the NIH, and the opportunity to demonstrate that it belonged. Now the fledgling NCNR had to begin the hard work: devising a mission, developing a base of grantees, establishing research programs, and determining the best way to organize the Center to address the health challenges of that time and well into the future. Nursing science had successfully completed one journey, but what about the next one?

Fast forward to today, and the progress we have made on that journey has surpassed all expectations. NINR-supported science, and the unique clinical perspective it brings to the science of improving health, has established itself as an essential part of the health research community, contributing to improved health and quality of life for countless Americans, and many others around the world. At universities and hospitals across the United States, nurse scientists provide the evidence base to support the practice of the largest healthcare profession and improve wellness and quality of life for all individuals, regardless of age or health status. Thanks to nursing science, adolescents have been taught skills to successfully manage their diabetes; young minority women have reduced their risk for acquiring HIV; there is a better understanding of why men and women respond differently to pain medication; and clinicians have improved tools for discussing palliative and end-of-life care with seriously ill patients and their families.

Advances made by NINR-supported investigators that have had a profound impact on health and health care span all aspects of nursing science. Just a few of these advances have included:

Providing training in coping skills, such as social problem solving, communication, and conflict management, to adolescents with type 1 diabetes that significantly improved their quality of life ( Davidson, Boland, & Grey, 1997 ).
Determining that higher nurse staffing levels and increased nurse education reduces preventable hospital deaths ( Aiken et al., 2014 ).
Designing and testing a program to support the parents of premature infants, which resulted in improved knowledge and parenting behaviors, and reduced healthcare costs by about $5,000 per infant ( Melnyk et al., 2006 ).
Showing that modified electrocardiogram monitoring in the prehospital setting can predict health outcomes for patients with symptoms of acute coronary symptoms ( Drew et al., 2011 ).
Testing interventions to improve communication between clinicians and family members of dying patients that improved care at the end of life ( Lautrette et al., 2007 ).
Supporting the development of a point-of-care diagnostic “mCHIP” device able to rapidly detect HIV and other infectious diseases in remote settings ( Chin et al., 2011 ).
Developing a sensor system to use in homes and residential facilities to detect changes in movement patterns in older adults that may be a sign of oncoming changes in clinical status ( Rantz et al., 2015 ).
Discovering a potential role for the protein tau in long-term complications of traumatic brain injury ( Olivera et al., 2015 ).
Helping us understand what may cause fatigue in patients undergoing radiation therapy ( Feng, Suy, Collins, & Saligan, 2017 ).
Establishing a Palliative Care Research Cooperative that has brought together over 160 research sites with the goal of facilitating the conduct of palliative care research ( Ritchie, Pollak, Kehl, Miller, & Kutner, 2017 ).

The continued development of the nursing science workforce is also a source of pride for those who have followed the field over the past three decades. Nurse scientists of today are more innovative and multidisciplinary than ever before, leading and participating in teams across many fields of science. Many have taken advantage of programs such as the NINR’s Summer Genetics Institute and Symptom Methodologies Bootcamp to expand their knowledge base and take their research in new directions. Others have used NINR-supported research fellowships to work with established investigators and gain the experience necessary to embark on their own research journeys. The nurse scientists of tomorrow must continue to seize these types of opportunities for continuous learning and reach out to colleagues from all disciplines to leverage their expertise in order to solve pressing problems.

The future of nursing science has never been brighter. What has been accomplished by NINR-supported scientists since the Institute’s establishment has set the stage for the discoveries of tomorrow in symptom science, wellness, self-management of chronic conditions, palliative and end-of-life care, and the new areas of nursing science yet to develop. The new era of precision health holds promise for managing symptoms on an individualized basis. New data science and clinical research methodologies will allow tomorrow’s nurse scientists to conduct assessments of larger datasets and analyze more complex study populations. Ultimately, nursing science must remain flexible and adaptable, always ready to take on whatever challenges and opportunities present themselves.

The future will not be without challenges, however. The past several years have seen a concerning decline in the number of nurses pursuing a research doctorate ( American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2018 ). While the decline most likely has multiple causes, including, for example, a difficult funding environment and competing career tracks, it is urgent that we develop innovative solutions to reverse this trend and ensure the future of nursing science. Those just beginning a nursing program need to be aware that a research career is a possibility, and how important such work is to the future of the profession. Funding organizations must constantly be thinking about new ways to reach diverse groups of nurses interested in science and encourage their career development. And those who have been successful in nursing science need to recommit to their roles as mentors, providing advice and encouragement to students at their institutions and beyond. It will be a team effort, but reversing this decline is a task at which we cannot fail.

I will soon be concluding my tenure as Director of the NINR. The opportunity to lead this organization for over 23 years, and to help guide the dedicated community of nurse scientists, has been the honor of a lifetime. Witnessing the real-world examples of individuals and communities made healthier as a result of NINR-supported research is profoundly gratifying. I know that the next individual to lead this incredible organization will experience this as well, and I hope that those of you with an innovative strategic and scientific vision for nursing science will make your voices heard as the NINR moves into the next phase of its history.

I am forever optimistic about the future journeys of nursing science, and I look forward to learning about the discoveries of tomorrow. We have much to be proud of in what has been accomplished so far, and there is so much more we can do. The opportunities for the NINR and for nursing science to contribute to the health and quality of life of all Americans have never been greater. Let us seize this moment and enjoy the journey.

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Open access
Published: 11 June 2024

Health science students’ preparedness for climate change: a scoping review on knowledge, attitudes, and practices

Fabricio Ccami-Bernal ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3172-2113 1 ,
Fernanda Barriga-Chambi ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6824-0092 1 ,
Carlos Quispe-Vicuña ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0076-0985 2 ,
Daniel Fernandez-Guzman ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9441-1067 3 ,
Rodolfo Arredondo-Nontol ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3333-2741 4 , 5 ,
Miriam Arredondo-Nontol ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6269-7593 4 , 5 &
David Rojas-Rueda ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5854-2484 6 , 7

BMC Medical Education volume 24 , Article number: 648 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Introduction

Climate change (CC) is a global public health issue, and the role of health professionals in addressing its impact is crucial. However, to what extent health professionals are prepared to deal with CC-related health problems is unclear. We aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of health students about the CC.

We conducted a scoping review through systematic searches in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Proquest, and EBSCO. We included original scientific research with no language or time restrictions. Two authors independently reviewed and decided on the eligibility of the studies, then performed data extraction.

21 studies were included, with a total of 9205 undergraduate nursing, medical, pharmacy, and public health students mainly. Most health science students (> 75%) recognized human activities as the main cause of CC. However, they perceived a lack of knowledge on how to address CC. Moreover, we found inadequate coverage or limited development of CC in related curricula that may contribute to incomplete learning or low confidence in the theoretical and practical concepts of students.

The findings of our scoping review suggest that while health sciences students possess a general understanding of CC, there is a significant gap in their knowledge regarding its specific health impacts. To address this gap, there is a need for targeted education and training for future health care professionals that emphasizes the health effects of CC.

Peer Review reports

The increasing use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases have led to an increase in the temperature of the environment and variations in climatic phenomena. Thus, climate change (CC) is one of the main public health problems with global reach [ 1 ] as it plays an important role in several environmental determinants of health, such as air and water pollution, as well as food shortages, and droughts, among others [ 2 ]. In addition, CC favors the development of communicable and non-communicable diseases, either directly or indirectly [ 3 ]. Such is the impact of CC that, in the last 20 years, it has been attributed to more than 5 million deaths worldwide [ 4 ]. By 2030, approximately 250,000 deaths are expected, generating annual public health expenditures of nearly US$4 billion [ 5 ].

All these threats highlight the need for multilevel strategies to prevent future fatal events and the loss of country economies [ 6 ]. Health professionals have a key role in addressing CC threats to health [ 7 , 8 ] because they are directly confronted with its impact, as is the case of the increase in cases of infectious diseases each year, or the increased mortality of patients with chronic diseases during a heat wave [ 9 ]. In the field of health sciences, medical education on climate change seems variable, as on the one hand there is evidence of incomplete knowledge despite the fact that students would like to learn more and on the other hand it is reported that most of the teaching given comes from individual initiatives rather than from a formal status in their syllabus [ 10 ]. Therefore, public health measures at different levels and by health institutions to mitigate the effects of CC are necessary to address this problem [ 11 ]. To this end, it is essential to teach future health professionals about CC and its impacts on health to better face these challenges and consequences [ 12 , 13 ].

Many students may become future public health decision-makers, and thus, their training should ensure knowledge about CC. However, it has been reported that about 13% of students receive an environmental health education within the curricula of their professional schools [ 14 ]. On the other hand, the curricular structure of the courses taught is likely not the most adequate to face the challenges that arise or come as a result of CC [ 15 , 16 ], indicating that health professionals will not be prepared to face the challenges that CC poses [ 17 ]. This scenario could lead to serious public health consequences, as health professionals will play a key role in addressing the challenges and health threats caused by CC [ 17 ].

Among the main solutions is the need to promote public awareness of CC and advocate for the population’s health by communicating opportunities and threats to public policymakers [ 8 ]. Despite this, it is not entirely clear to what extent health professionals are prepared to act and respond adequately to the health impacts of CC. In that sense, a university education would be an appropriate starting point to prepare health professionals, as higher education is one of the pillars of sustainable development in the world [ 18 , 19 ] and moreover, It has been reported that the concern and awareness of medical and nursing students about causes of CC may be influenced by the knowledge acquired, especially in its causes [ 20 , 21 ]. . It should also be added that although there are previous reviews that evaluate education on the environment and climate change in medical student populations (human medicine, nursing, etc.) [ 10 , 22 , 23 ], these only perform a superficial analysis without highlighting the knowledge, attitude or practice of each student in each study. Therefore, this scoping review assessed knowledge, attitudes, mitigation practices against CC of health students and the students’ perspectives regarding the incroporation of CC in the academic curriculum. These findings will provide an updated overview of the problem and serve as a basis for stimulating and implementing topics related to CC in curricular plans.

A scoping review was conducted following the guidelines of the 2018 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Analysis and Meta-Analysis for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) extension [ 24 ], and the methodology described by the Joanna Briggs Institute [ 25 ]. The review protocol has been publicly disclosed and is accessible online [ 26 ]. The primary objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to climate change among students in health sciences. As a secondary aim, we examined the students’ perspectives regarding the incrorporation of this topic into their curricula was evaluated.

Eligibility criteria

In this scoping review, we included original scientific research published in scientific journals, without language or time restriction, that assessed knowledge, attitudes, practices, or related attributes of health science students about CC. We included students of health sciences from professional schools or formal educational programs in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and psychology.

Literature search

The following databases were searched: (1) PubMed, (2) Scopus, (3) Web of Science (Core collection), (4) Proquest (Health & Medical Collection, Public Health Database, Education Database, Environmental Science Database, Psychology Database, Nursing, and Allied database) and (5) EBSCO (Dentistry & Oral Sciences Source, GreenFILE, Psychology, and Behavioral Sciences Collection). The search was conducted on May 4, 2022. The complete search strategy for each database can be found in Supplementary Material 1 .

Study selection

Articles from the databases were imported into Rayyan Software, and duplicates were manually removed. Subsequently, two authors (C.Q.V., D.F.G.) independently screened by title and abstract to sift potentially includable articles. Then, two authors (M.A.N., R.A.N.) independently screened full-text studies for compliance with the selection criteria. Discrepancies were resolved at a meeting with a third author (F.C.B. or D.F.G.). The screening and selection flowchart are shown in Fig. 1 .

Flow diagram summarizing the process of literature search and selection

Data extraction

We designed a Microsoft Excel sheet to extract the data. This process was performed independently by two authors (F.C.B., M.B.C.). We extracted the following variables from the studies included: name of the first author, date of publication, region, the characteristics of the study (type and focus of the study, the instruments or methods used to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices (KAPs), and their validity), the gross national income of the country of the study population as established by the World Bank [ 27 ], the characteristics of the students (type of students, year of study, and sample size). KAPs on the following items were extracted: Knowledge (causes of CC, effects on the environment and human health, perception of the level of knowledge and sources of information), attitudes according to the definition used in the primary studies (importance of CC and role as a health professional) and mitigation practices against CC (eco-friendly practices by the health system and at home) and the inclusion of CC in the academic curriculum. In the case of longitudinal studies, data were extracted from the baseline data.

Synthesis of results

A scoping rather than a systematic review was proposed because it is necessary to identify and map the evidence on the topic addressed, the types of studies, and the concepts used to examine how research in this field is conducted [ 28 ]. The synthesis of the results was narrative, applying a qualitative thematic analysis approach to categorize and present the key themes in our data. The contents of the studies were synthesized in an evidence map, identifying common themes, and synthesizing the logical link between them, as well as the research gaps identified.

Of a total of 1020 studies identified, 21 including 9205 students were finally included [ 13 , 21 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ] (Fig. 1 ). Sixteen (76.2%) were cross-sectional, and four (19.0%) were qualitative studies. Of the 35 countries studied, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were the most studied regions with 14 (40%), 10 (28.5%), and 5 (14.3%) respectively, the remaining 6 studies (17.2) belong to the USA, Africa, and Australia (Fig. 2 ), with high-income countries being the most studied. Fourteen studies (66.7%) included nursing students, ten (47.6%) medical students, two (9.5%) pharmacy students, two (9.5%) public health students, and four (19%) included other health students (physician assistants, medical laboratory technology, environmental health, health officers, psychiatry nursing, dentistry, midwifery). The students were mostly fourth-year (10 studies), third-year (10 studies), first-year (9 studies), and second-year (7 studies). 50% of the articles used instruments developed by the authors, and the questionnaire most commonly used was the Sustainability Attitudes in Nursing Survey (SANS) questionnaire (33.3%) (Table 1 ).

Geographic representation of the countries studied in the studies included ( n = 35)

Table 2 and the evidence map (Fig. 3 ) summarize the KAPs assessed. Attitudes, practices, and opinions regarding the curriculum were studied more by nursing students, while knowledge was assessed more by medical students. Of the 11 studies that included medical students, 10 assessed knowledge, 8 attitudes, and 2 practices. Of the 14 studies that included nursing students, 6 assessed knowledge, 14 attitudes, and 9 practices. Of the 6 that evaluated students from other careers (pharmacy, public health, physician assistant, medical laboratory technology, environmental health, health officer, psychiatry nursing, dentist, midwifery), 5 evaluated knowledge, 4 attitudes, and 2 practices.

Evidence map

Thirteen studies reported knowledge of CC [ 21 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 38 , 39 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Eight assessed the knowledge of the causes of CC. In one study, the majority of nursing students (65.4%) considered CC to be a balance between natural and human causes [ 42 ], unlike the rest of the studies [ 21 , 32 , 34 , 39 , 43 , 44 , 45 ] in which more than 75% of the students identified the contribution of human activities (industrial and vehicular pollution, deforestation, unsustainable consumption of resources, CO 2 emissions) as a cause of CC. Only one study assessed knowledge about pollution produced by the area of health, with less than half of the students correctly identifying that “10% of gas emissions come from the health sector”, and with less knowledge among medical students [ 33 ].

The 13 studies assessed knowledge about the effects of CC on the environment and health. The effects on the environment most frequently identified were lack of food and water [ 30 , 31 , 45 ], changes in air quality and heat shocks [ 27 ], and an increase in poverty and migration [ 30 ]. Regarding health effects, more than 90% of students identified the interruption in the delivery of health services [ 21 , 33 , 34 ] and diseases related to air quality [ 33 , 34 , 45 ]. More than 60% of students linked skin cancer to increased ultraviolet radiation [ 32 , 45 ]. Other effects identified to a lesser extent were vector-related infectious diseases [ 38 , 39 , 43 ], malnutrition, water quality [ 38 ], mental health conditions [ 33 , 38 ], and cold-related illness [ 21 ].

In four studies, most students reported feeling that they do not have the information or knowledge necessary to appropriately address the impact of CC on health [ 13 , 34 , 42 , 43 ] and one was associated with a lack of adequate teacher orientation and/or inadequate practical training one study described a lack of adequate teacher orientation and/or inadequate practical training [ 34 ]. In addition, when CC information sources were consulted, the internet was the most popular source in a study conducted by medical and nursing students (95%) [ 34 ], in contrast to other health students among whom only 45% used internet as a main source of information [ 34 ]. The second most used source of information was the television and radio [ 34 , 38 , 40 ].

Eighteen studies assessed attitudes toward CC [ 13 , 21 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. In the studies that used the SANS questionnaire for nursing students; two reported that students mildly agreed with the statement. “Climate change is an important issue for nursing” [ 36 , 37 ], four stated that they somewhat agreed [ 29 , 40 , 41 , 47 ] and another study reported that 55% agreed with the statement to some degree [ 46 ]. Similarly, the majority (> 80%) of students consider CC to be a serious, important, and current problem [ 21 , 34 , 38 ]. In qualitative studies, nursing students have a pessimistic view of the future concerning CC [ 30 ], and medical students believe the health impact will be massive [ 43 ].

Students believe the topic is important and can help their patients, but medical students believe it to a lesser extent than nursing students (60.5% vs. 81.1%) [ 33 ]. Similarly, medical students were more likely to say that CC is not an area of personal interest to them (57.4% vs. 39.6%) [ 33 ]. Although students consider that they should have an educational role in their patients and the public about the impacts of CC [ 31 ], medical students consider it to a lesser extent (69.8% vs. 86.8%) [ 33 ]. Moreover, when asked if they feel prepared for CC, 2 out of 3 medical students believe they are not prepared in to deal with CC [ 13 ].

Regarding the responsibilities that health professionals should assume in CC, approximately 90% are concerned about the health effects of CC and recognize that they are responsible for conserving resources and preventing contamination within their professional practice [ 33 , 34 ]. Similarly, in the qualitative studies, students stated that health professionals should be role models for patients and society regarding CC [ 30 , 43 , 45 ]. However, this professional responsibility was less assumed in the case of medical students [ 31 ] and about 80% of health science students consider pollution prevention and natural resource conservation outside their responsibility [ 33 , 38 ].

Ten studies reported on practices related to CC [ 29 , 31 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. Regarding eco-friendly practices within the health care system, 95% of students agreed on reducing unnecessary material used in health care [ 33 ]. More than 80% of students recognized the importance of promoting measures such as transparency of the environmental footprint of the health care industry and optimization of supplies, procedures, and medical devices [ 33 ].

Of the studies on nursing students, in two, the mean areed with the statement: “They apply sustainability principles in nursing practice” [ 40 , 41 ], and in two studies the meanwas neutral [ 36 , 37 ]. On eco-friendly practices in the home, the average mildly agreed [ 37 , 46 , 47 ] and somewhat agree [ 29 , 40 , 41 ] with the statement: “they apply sustainability principles at home.” 77% of nursing students choose eco-friendly products [ 45 ]. Similarly, in the case of medical students, about 75% perform eco-friendly actions such as avoiding the consumption of plastic [ 31 ] or energy saving [ 44 ], and, to a lesser extent (30%), recycling or use of alternative energies [ 44 ].

Ten studies analyzed the opinions of including CC in the curriculum [ 29 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. The mean of the nursing students agreed to some degree with including CC and sustainability to the nursing curriculum [ 29 , 40 , 41 , 46 , 47 ], in contrast to the rest of the studies in which the mean was neutral [ 36 , 37 ]. This is similar to other studies on medical and nursing students, among whom 90% consider the need to include CC in the curriculum [ 33 , 34 ]. However, one out of three studied mentioned that there might not be time to learn about this topic because of the pre-existing academic load [ 33 ].

With respect to how to include CC in the curriculum, students preferred that the topics should be addressed during classes in a stand-alone or existing course [ 33 , 34 , 45 ] focused on clinical knowledge and skills related to CC in a practical and clinically integrated manner [ 34 ]. Therefore, they stated that the knowledge should be reinforced in a clinical setting [ 21 ]; this opinion was higher among nursing students and physician assistants (71.7%) than in medical students (57.4%) [ 33 ].

Our study found that most health science students (> 75%) recognized human activities as the main cause of CC. However, while they were aware of the health consequences of CC, they perceived a lack of knowledge on how to address them. Moreover, we found inadequate coverage or limited development of CC in related curricula, which may contribute to the incomplete learning or low confidence in the theoretical and practical concepts of students on the subject. Despite this, researchers are increasingly interested in understanding the KAP. of health care professionals, especially those who provide direct patient care and are involved in community activities such as nursing. We found that nursing students were more predominant in the studies we evaluated than medical or other health professionals.

Although a university education is an essential pillar for building student knowledge and skills, learning scenarios (courses, workshops, seminars, etc.) on CC and health are either not included in the related curricula or developed only to a limited extent [ 16 , 48 , 49 ]. Nonetheless, student initiatives are leading the way to addressing the issue in the educational setting [ 50 ], which provides an opportunity to propose programs that can strengthen education and equip health professionals to face the threats of CC in health [ 51 ]. Students agreed that CC is an important problem for their professions and future patients, but medical students expressed less concern compared to nursing or other professionals. This concern and awareness of the relevance of CC were also observed in other university students [ 52 ] and health professionals who have already graduated [ 53 , 54 ]. Conversely, physicians in India have expressed more interest in learning about and addressing climate change and its effects on health than other professionals [ 55 ]. This could be due to the practical setting, in which graduating physicians better perceive the knowledge gap needed to address this problem with their patients [ 56 ].

Regarding practices, most students recognized the importance of complying with eco-friendly practices within the health care system and in their homes. Promoting such behaviors is crucial, as the health sector is one of the primary greenhouse gas emitters [ 57 ]. Health professionals have enormous potential to shift quickly from being consumers of sectors that degrade the environment to drivers of the green revolution, as they have an ethical mandate not to harm [ 57 ].

Finally, most students believe that CC teaching should be included in their curricula, with a practical, clinical approach that does not add to the academic load of other courses. A study evaluating the teaching of CC to medical students using didactic and experiential elements showed a significant increase in their self-reported sense of readiness to discuss the importance of CC with their patients [ 13 ]. Therefore, efforts should be continued to adequately include CC in the curriculum. Similarly, international student organizations, such as the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, advocate a multi-pronged approach to incorporate the teaching of CC in the medical curriculum and across the entire spectrum of the curricula of health professions [ 58 ].

This scoping review has certain limitations that need to be acknowledged. Firstly, only studies in English were included, which may have resulted in overlooking some relevant studies. In addition, we did not formally assess the methodological quality of the studies included, which might affect the reliability of the results reported. Secondly, this review followed the methodological recommendations of JBI [ 25 ] and PRISMA [ 24 ], which may have limited the scope of the review. Thirdly, the studies included primarily represented students from middle- to high-income countries, which restricts the generalizability of the findings to middle- to low-income countries. Caution should be exercised when generalizing the findings to all students, as this scoping review did not undertake quantitative synthesis. Nevertheless, this review is the first to synthesize and provide an overview of the literature in this study area, which is a significant strength of the study.

The findings of our scoping review suggest that while health sciences students possess a general understanding of climate change (CC), there is a significant gap in their knowledge regarding the specific health impacts of CC. To address this gap, there is a need for targeted education and training of future health care professionals that emphasizes the health effects of CC. Such training should also focus on practical, applicable approaches to managing and mitigating the impacts of CC on patient health. Additionally, our review highlights the strong desire of students for CC education to be integrated into their curricula in a more experiential, hands-on way. Ultimately, the results of our study underscore the importance of addressing these gaps in knowledge and training among health science students to equip them to better meet the challenges of CC in their future careers.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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F.C.B. participated in the conceptualization of the study. F.C.B., and D.F.G. designed the study. F.C.B., F.B.C., C.Q.V., D.F.G., R.A.N., and M.A.N. participated in the data collection. F.C.B., and F.B.C. performed the data analyses. F.C.B., F.B.C., C.Q.V., D.F.G., R.A.N., M.A.N., and D.R.R. discussed and drafted the paper. D.R.R. substantially revised the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Ccami-Bernal, F., Barriga-Chambi, F., Quispe-Vicuña, C. et al. Health science students’ preparedness for climate change: a scoping review on knowledge, attitudes, and practices. BMC Med Educ 24 , 648 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05629-2

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Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors

Page Contents

Why Authorship Matters
Who Is an Author?
Non-Author Contributors
Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technology

1. Why Authorship Matters

Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work. The following recommendations are intended to ensure that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as authors, but also that contributors credited as authors understand their role in taking responsibility and being accountable for what is published.

Editors should be aware of the practice of excluding local researchers from low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) from authorship when data are from LMICs. Inclusion of local authors adds to fairness, context, and implications of the research. Lack of inclusion of local investigators as authors should prompt questioning and may lead to rejection.

Because authorship does not communicate what contributions qualified an individual to be an author, some journals now request and publish information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in a submitted study, at least for original research. Editors are strongly encouraged to develop and implement a contributorship policy. Such policies remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions, but leave unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify an individual for authorship. The ICMJE has thus developed criteria for authorship that can be used by all journals, including those that distinguish authors from other contributors.

2. Who Is an Author?

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged—see Section II.A.3 below. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work, making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses. We encourage collaboration and co-authorship with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted. It is the collective responsibility of the authors, not the journal to which the work is submitted, to determine that all people named as authors meet all four criteria; it is not the role of journal editors to determine who qualifies or does not qualify for authorship or to arbitrate authorship conflicts. If agreement cannot be reached about who qualifies for authorship, the institution(s) where the work was performed, not the journal editor, should be asked to investigate. The criteria used to determine the order in which authors are listed on the byline may vary, and are to be decided collectively by the author group and not by editors. If authors request removal or addition of an author after manuscript submission or publication, journal editors should seek an explanation and signed statement of agreement for the requested change from all listed authors and from the author to be removed or added.

The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer-review, and publication process. The corresponding author typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and disclosures of relationships and activities are properly completed and reported, although these duties may be delegated to one or more co-authors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer-review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication. Although the corresponding author has primary responsibility for correspondence with the journal, the ICMJE recommends that editors send copies of all correspondence to all listed authors.

When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will be an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript, and they should be able to take public responsibility for the work and should have full confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the work of other group authors. They will also be expected as individuals to complete disclosure forms.

Some large multi-author groups designate authorship by a group name, with or without the names of individuals. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should specify the group name if one exists, and clearly identify the group members who can take credit and responsibility for the work as authors. The byline of the article identifies who is directly responsible for the manuscript, and MEDLINE lists as authors whichever names appear on the byline. If the byline includes a group name, MEDLINE will list the names of individual group members who are authors or who are collaborators, sometimes called non-author contributors, if there is a note associated with the byline clearly stating that the individual names are elsewhere in the paper and whether those names are authors or collaborators.

3. Non-Author Contributors

Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients," "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript").

Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, editors are advised to require that the corresponding author obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.

Use of AI for writing assistance should be reported in the acknowledgment section.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Technology

At submission, the journal should require authors to disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work in the appropriate section if applicable, how they used it. For example, if AI was used for writing assistance, describe this in the acknowledgment section (see Section II.A.3). If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods (see Section IV.A.3.d). Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, and these responsibilities are required for authorship (see Section II.A.1). Therefore, humans are responsible for any submitted material that included the use of AI-assisted technologies. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.

Next: Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest

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Taylor and Scottish Partners Receive £1 Million for Palliative Care Research

Andrew Taylor, MD, MHS , associate professor of biomedical informatics and data science and of emergency medicine, will work with partners in Scotland on a £1 million study to improve unscheduled end-of-life care.

The University of St Andrews has been awarded up to £1 million each by Scotland's Chief Scientist Office to conduct major research programs into population health issues. The grant, announced by Health and Social Care Secretary Neil Gray on June 4, will support an Applied Health Research Program focused on improving unscheduled care for people across Scotland in their last year of life. Collaborators include NHS Fife, NHS Highland / Highland Hospice, the Fife Community Advisory Council, the University of Edinburgh, and Yale University.

The project arose in the context of unprecedented strain on the country’s unscheduled care services due to workforce shortages, demographic change, and widespread multimorbidity (when a person has two or more long-term health conditions). In 2022, Accident & Emergency waiting times hit record levels and over a quarter-million calls to NHS24 went unanswered. Alongside these services, unscheduled care also includes General Practice Out-of-Hours (GPOOH) and the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

Previous research has identified that one group of people who use such services frequently is those in their last year of life. Although it plays an essential role in the healthcare system, unscheduled care is often not the most appropriate option for this population, being necessarily reliant on a reactive approach to care without the benefit of more nuanced, anticipatory, and coordinated planning. The result can often be more fragmented, expensive and less effective care, causing unintended additional distress to patients in their last year of life and their families.

“We are very aware that use of unscheduled care services increases for a person with a palliative diagnosis in the last year of their lives,” said team member and Clinical Partnership Director for NHS Highland/Highland Hospice, Michael Loynd. “We need to understand if better identification of this population and different supports such as dedicated helplines can enable an alternative route of support.” As part of this process, a key objective of the research program will be to develop a single point of contact and care coordination for this vulnerable group.

This program will use machine learning to analyze existing healthcare data and predict future patterns of unscheduled care use by patients in their last year of life. This will in turn allow for the identification of such patients who may be in need of social care reviews, prescribing interventions, or other anticipatory care measures that would reduce their need for unscheduled care.

“The significant CSO funding awarded to the University of St. Andrews, along with NHS Fife, Yale University, and other key partners, signifies a transformative moment in end-of-life care research. At Yale, we are eager to lend our expertise in emergency medicine and artificial intelligence to this critical initiative," said Taylor. "This collaboration will not only aim to improve the quality of life for patients in their final year but also reduce the burden on unscheduled care services through pioneering anticipatory care models. This project offers a remarkable opportunity for cross-institutional collaboration, set to drive substantial enhancements in healthcare delivery and outcomes worldwide.”

The team’s research will not only benefit patients, first and foremost, but aims to improve NHS sustainability by reducing the unscheduled care workload. “Better identification of this group of people will facilitate improved NHS care, but it will also increase the capacity of emergency care services”, said Colin McCowan, Head of the School of Medicine’s Population and Behavioral Science research division.

With this significant grant from the Scottish Government, the University of St Andrews and its partners are poised to make a profound impact on the healthcare landscape in Scotland. By leveraging advanced machine learning techniques and a deep understanding of the challenges facing the unscheduled care system, this research aims to not only enhance the quality of life for patients in their last year of life but also ensure a more sustainable future for NHS services.

Members of the research team include Colin McCowan, Alex Baldacchino, Peter D. Donnelly, Sarah E. E. Mills, Veronica O'Carroll, Frank Sullivan and Joseph Tay Wee Teck from University of St Andrews; Peter Hall and Elizabeth Lemmon from University of Edinburgh; Michael Loynd from NHS Highland/Highland Hospice; Joanna Bowden, Rishma Maini, Christopher McKenna, Frances Quirk and Rajendra Raman from NHS Fife; and Andrew Taylor from Yale School of Medicine.

Taylor was named a University of St Andrews Global Fellow in 2023.

Emergency Medicine

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Andrew Taylor, MD, MHS Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and of Bioinformatics & Data Science; Director of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Emergency Medicine

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The following recommendations are intended to ensure that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as authors, but also that contributors credited as authors understand their role in taking responsibility and being accountable for what is published. Editors should be aware of the practice of ...
Current Issue : Nursing Research
Nursing Research is a peer-reviewed journal celebrating over 60 years as the most sought-after nursing resource; it offers more depth, more detail, and more of what today's nurses demand. Nursing Research covers key issues, including health promotion, human responses to illness, acute care nursing research, symptom management, cost-effectiveness, vulnerable populations, health services, and ...
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Abridged Science for High School Students. The Nuclear Research Foundation School Certificate Integrated, Volume 2. Book. • 1966. Abschlusskurs Sonografie der Bewegungsorgane First Edition. Book. • 2024. Absolute Radiometry. Electrically Calibrated Thermal Detectors of Optical Radiation.
Researchers plan to retract landmark Alzheimer's paper ...
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 384, Issue 6700. Authors of a landmark Alzheimer's disease research paper published in Nature in 2006 have agreed to retract the study in response to allegations of image manipulation. University of Minnesota (UMN) Twin Cities neuroscientist Karen Ashe, the paper's senior author, acknowledged ...
Erratum for the Research Article: "Sulfated disaccharide ...
In the Research Article "Sulfated disaccharide protects membrane and DNA damages from arginine-rich dipeptide repeats in ALS" by Chang et al., the authors note that the chemical structure in Fig. 5C appeared incorrectly.
Taylor and Scottish Partners Receive £1 Million for Palliative Care
Andrew Taylor, MD, MHS, associate professor of biomedical informatics and data science and of emergency medicine, will work with partners in Scotland on a £1 million study to improve unscheduled end-of-life care.. The University of St Andrews has been awarded up to £1 million each by Scotland's Chief Scientist Office to conduct major research programs into population health issues.
A practice‐based model to guide nursing science and improve the health
1 INTRODUCTION. Nursing is the largest profession in health care, with continued growth expected over the next several years (Grady & Hinshaw, 2017).Nursing science plays a critical role in addressing health challenges, generating new knowledge and translating evidence to practice to improve patient outcomes (Grady, 2017; Powell, 2015).Furthermore, nursing science integrates biobehavioural ...
What is Nursing Research?
Abstract. The first article in this series looked at the value of research in nursing. This second article explains what nursing research is, and provides a list of steps to carry out research. There is, unfortunately, a great deal of anxiety associated with the word 'research', for many nurses. Over recent years, government and trust ...

Using unfolding case studies to develop critical thinking for Graduate Entry Nursing students: an educational design research study

Knowledge and associated factors of healthcare professionals in detecting patient-ventilator asynchrony using waveform analysis at intensive care units of the federal public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2023

Benefit finding among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer in a palliative treatment: a qualitative study

Gender sensitivity in nursing practice: assessing the impact of childhood experiences of domestic violence and perceptions of sexism among healthcare providers on their gender sensitivity

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Stressors and coping styles of nursing students in the middle period of clinical practicum: a qualitative study

Fostering green transformational leadership: the influence of green educational intervention on nurse managers’ green behavior and creativity

Experiences of formal caregivers of elderly inpatients with physical disabilities in China: a qualitative study

The early career resilience experience of generation Z newly graduated registered nurses in standardized training in the emergency department: a qualitative study in Shanghai

Nursing categories’ perceptions of the practice environment and quality of care in North West Province: a cross-sectional survey design

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The relationship between nurses’ moral competency and missed nursing care: a descriptive-correlational study

Flemish critical care nurses’ experiences regarding the influence of work-related demands on their health: a descriptive interpretive qualitative study

Differences in the knowledge, attitudes, and needs of caregivers and healthcare providers regarding palliative care: a cross-sectional investigation in pediatric settings in China

Multi-stage optimization strategy based on contextual analysis to create M-health components for case management model in breast cancer transitional care: the CMBM study as an example

Prevalence of depression and associated factors among primary caregivers of adult cancer patients, Sidama region Southern Ethiopia: cross-sectional study

Patient perspectives on the role of orthopedic nurse practitioners: a cross-sectional study

Alone and together: registered nurses’ experiences of work satisfaction in municipal home healthcare

The effect of educational application in nursing internship clinical training on cognitive and functional skills and students’ satisfaction

Compliance with oral nutritional supplements and its influencing factors in postoperative patients with digestive tract tumors: a cross-sectional study

Assessing nurses’ professional competency: a cross-sectional study in Palestine

Dyadic effects of financial toxicity and social support on the fear of cancer recurrence in breast cancer patients and caregivers: an actor–partner interdependence mediation model

The knowledge, attitude and behavior of ICU nurses regarding ICU-acquired weakness: a cross-sectional survey

Transitional care for older persons with need of geriatric rehabilitation nursing interventions

Correction: Nurses’ and patients’ perceptions of physical health screening for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a qualitative study

Exploring the influence of the spiritual climate on psychological empowerment among nurses in China: a cross-sectional study

The influence of psychosocial work environment, personal perceived health and job crafting on nurses’ well-being: a cross-sectional survey study

Employing a serious game intervention to promote adolescent school children’s perceptions of nursing and midwifery professions

Exploring the relationship between cyberloafing and innovativeness among nurses in research hospitals: a cross-sectional study in Turkey

Experience and training needs of nurses in military hospital on emergency rescue at high altitude: a qualitative meta-synthesis

The factors of job crafting in emergency nurses: regression models versus qualitative comparative analysis

Workplace access, burnout, and prescription drug misuse among Korean hospital nurses: a cross-sectional study

Exploring presence practices: a study of unit managers in a selected Provincial Hospital in Free State Province

A scale for measuring nursing digital application skills: a development and psychometric testing study

Development and initiation of a preceptor program to improve midwifery and nursing clinical education in sub-saharan Africa: protocol for a mixed methods study

The moderating role of work environment in the relationship between proactive personality and personal growth initiative among nurses: a cross-sectional study

Pathways linking workplace violence and suicidal ideation/non-suicidal self-injury among nurse staff: the mediating role of loneliness and depressive symptoms

Barriers and outcomes of therapeutic communication between nurses and patients in Africa: a scoping review

Abusive supervision and nursing students’ intention to leave the nursing profession: a moderated mediation model of emotional exhaustion and the nurse-patient relationship

Validation of the Chinese version of the Oslo-3 Social Support Scale among nursing students: a study based on Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory models

Development of a training program prototype to enhance implementation leadership competencies and behaviours of Chinese unit nurse managers: a qualitative descriptive study

The impact of negative cognitive bias on NSSI: mediating non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies

Impact of a comprehensive rehabilitation palliative care program on the quality of life of patients with terminal cancer and their informal caregivers: a quasi-experimental study

Factors associated with work engagement among specialist nurses in china: a cross-sectional study

Correction: Analysis of cybersickness in virtual nursing simulation: a German longitudinal study

Process evaluation of the implementation of the ABC method, an intervention for nurses dealing with challenging behaviour of patients with brain injury

Nurses, non-nurse healthcare providers, and clients’ perspectives, encounters, and choices of nursing gender in Tanzania: a qualitative descriptive study

The experiences of patients with COVID-19 and their relatives from receiving professional home care nursing: a qualitative content analysis

The mediating effect of pregnancy adaptation between family support and maternal-fetal bonding: a cross-sectional study

Emotional intelligence and self-esteem among Saudi Arabian and Indian nursing students: findings from two countries

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