Student midwives' knowledge, skills and competency in relation to the active management of the third stage of labour: A correlational study.

Background: Lesotho has been experiencing health challenges as indicated by its high maternal mortality ratio of 620 per 100 000 live births for the year 2010, which has been linked to its limited human resources.

Objectives: The knowledge and skills of final-year student nurse-midwives related to the active management of the third stage of labour were determined.

Method: A quantitative, descriptive survey design was used to conduct this study with 99 final-year midwifery students at four nursing schools in Lesotho using stratified sampling.

Professionalism experiences of undergraduate learner nurses during their 4-year training programme at a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Background: Professional socialisation of student nurses needs to be integrated into the formal teaching and learning during the nursing programme. Embedded in the training programme are professional values that are used synonymously with nursing professionalism. Professionalism is the conduct, qualities, values, vision, mission and/or goals that characterise a profession, and describes behaviours that are expected within the profession's members.

The development of an implementation framework for service-learning during the undergraduate nursing programme in the Western Cape Province.

Background: Service-learning (SL) is a contested field of knowledge and issues of sustainability and scholarship have been raised about it. The South African Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) has provided policy documents to guide higher education institutions (HEIs) in the facilitation of SL institutionalisation in their academic programmes. An implementation framework was therefore needed to institutionalise the necessary epistemological shifts advocated in the national SL policy guidelines.

Cracking the nut of service-learning in nursing at a higher educational institution.

Background: The readiness of academics to engage in the service-learning (SL) institutionalisation process is not accentuated in research on SL institutionalisation in South Africa. The argument has been advanced that SL scholarship and willingness of key stakeholders are crucial for SL institutionalisation at the academic programme level.

Aim: The research focus of the study being reported here was on readiness of respondents to embed SL in the curricula of the nursing programme.

Environmental and nursing-staff factors contributing to aggressive and violent behaviour of patients in mental health facilities.

Background: Aggressive and violent behaviour of inpatients in mental health facilities disrupts the therapeutic alliance and hampers treatment.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to describe patients' perceptions of the possible environmental and staff factors that might contribute to their aggressive and violent behaviour after admission to a mental health facility; and to propose strategies to prevent and manage such behaviour.

Research Design: A qualitative, phenomenological study was utilised, in which purposefully sampled inpatients were interviewed over a six-month period.

The academic transitional experiences of masters' students at the University of the Western Cape.

Transition has been a major focus of educational institutions. However, most of the research into student transition focuses on the challenges related the transition from high school to university. Not much emphasis has been placed on the transition from undergraduate to postgraduate studies, despite the steadily increasing postgraduate enrolment rates in higher education institutions.