Leading through the COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences of UK Executive Nurse Directors.

Aim: To explore the challenges experienced by Executive Nurse Directors during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to inform future nursing leadership strategies.

Design: A qualitative research project involving interviews with 21 Executive Nurse Directors from England and Wales.

Methods: Participants were purposively sampled and recruited through Chief Nursing Officers and nursing leadership networks.

Predictive genetic testing for Huntington's disease: Exploring participant experiences of uncertainty and ambivalence between clinic appointments.

Ambivalence and uncertainty are key themes throughout the psychology of healthcare literature. This is especially so for individuals at risk of Huntington's disease (HD) deliberating the decision to undergo genetic testing because there is currently no treatment that modifies disease progression. A better understanding of the experience of making a decision about genetic prediction will help practitioners support and guide individuals through this process.

Making patients political: Narrating, curating, enacting, and navigating the 'idealised policy patient'.

In this article we develop the concept of the 'idealised policy patient' to contribute to a better understanding of patient-family activism and the mechanisms through which powerful and persuasive patient narratives are facilitated and mobilised. The context through which we explore the idealised policy patient is the UK debates about the legalisation of mitochondrial donation, which primarily took place between 2011 and 2015. In our example, the idealised policy patient was constructed around a culturally persuasive narrative of patient suffering, where mitochondrial donation was presented as a desirable and ethical solution.

Cigarette smoke exposure of hospitalised children: Prevalence of smoking in parents or carers and admission practices of health services.

Aim: The aim of this study is to understand the exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke in the homes of hospitalised children through: (i) understanding the prevalence of smoking in adults or carers and (ii) examining the health services' approach to identifying parental smoking status.

Methods: This prospective observational study consisted of two surveys: one administered to parents/carers of hospitalised children and one to health services. The first cross-sectional survey aimed to elicit the proportion of children requiring admission to a regional Victorian general paediatric unit who live with adults who smoke cigarettes.

Genetic testing and family entanglements.

The development of the 'new genetics' in the early 1990's opened up a new space which required some patients and families to understand and navigate genetic testing. The social science literature that has grown alongside the 'new genetics', now spanning more than thirty years, has continued to explore and question assumptions about attitudes and responses towards genetic technologies. In this article we highlight how individual experience of genetic disease and personal responses towards genetic technologies can only be understood by considering their context.