Using the 'getting it right' tool for children and young people.

Ensuring that primary care nurses can address the health needs of babies, children and young people is critically important. Therefore, a self-assessment tool to identify current skills and competencies has been launched. This article gives a brief overview of the Getting it Right for Children and Young People tool.

Reflections on the process of change on acute psychiatric wards during the City Nurse Project.

The intention of this paper is to discuss the process of therapeutic change on two acute psychiatric wards during a research project that aimed to reduce conflict and containment. Analysis of fieldwork notes, reflection, team discussion and supervision. The City Nurse Project successfully reduced patient aggression, self-harm and absconding.

Promoting evidence-based practice in stroke care in Australia.

Aim: To explore approaches to the promotion of evidence-based practice from academic and clinical perspectives by visiting acute stroke units and collaborating centres of the Joanna Briggs Institute, an international network of academic centres.

Method: A semi-structured interview schedule was developed, piloted and used to guide interviews with academic and clinical staff in five state capital cities in Australia. Data were analysed and findings reviewed by clinical and academic participants.

What sort of networks are public health networks?

Background: Re-organization of the English National Health Service (NHS) has fragmented the public health workforce, relocating teams from about 100 health authorities into over 300 primary care trusts (PCTs). The UK Government announced the setting up of public health networks (PHNs) as a solution to the problems created by fragmentation.

Methods: Fifty-seven semi-structured telephone interviews were held with key players in PHNs in all strategic health authority areas in England in early 2003.

Patient Advice and Liaison Services: strengthening the voices of individual service users in health-care organizations.

Objective: To explore the roles of Patient Advice and Liaison Services (PALS) in their interactions with service users.

Context: Every National Health Service health-care provider in England now has a PALS, which provides service users with information and help in resolving concerns and dissatisfactions with health care.

Design: Longitudinal qualitative study, 2002-4.

E-dating, identity and HIV prevention: theorising sexualities, risk and network society.

This paper addresses how London gay men use the internet to meet sexual partners, or for e-dating. Based on qualitative interviews conducted face-to-face or via the internet, this research develops an account of how information technologies mediate the negotiation of identity and risk in connection with sexual practice. E-dating itself is a bricolage, or heterogeneous DIY practice of internet-based-communication (IBC).

Sex and the Internet: gay men, risk reduction and serostatus.

Access to the Internet has increased dramatically over the past decade as has its use for meeting sexual partners (e-dating), particularly among gay men. Between June 2002 and January 2004, 128 gay/bisexual men living in London were interviewed one-to-one about their experience of e-dating, sexual risk and HIV prevention. The men were recruited both online (through the Internet) and offline (in clinics and the community); 32 men were HIV-positive, 59 HIV-negative, while 13 had never had an HIV test.

Understanding some naturalistic research methodologies.

This article aims to redress the confusion surrounding the meaning of research terms. While most textbooks outline the meanings of different research terms in a way that is very abstract for many readers, this article has taken the opposite approach. It outlines a fictitious scenario and uses it to explain some of the more common research terms from the naturalistic paradigm - research data collected within the natural setting such as an outpatients clinic or health centre, as opposed to a controlled laboratory setting.

Parastomal hernia: an exploration of the risk factors and the implications.

Risk may be defined as 'the chance that something may happen to cause loss or an adverse effect' (Concise Oxford Medical Dictionary, 2003). Patients undergoing stoma formation are at risk of developing a wide range of complications following surgery. A parastomal hernia is an adverse effect that can contribute to postoperative morbidity.

Changes in attitudes to personality disorder on a DSPD unit.

Background: Psychiatric professionals tend to have poor attitudes towards people who suffer from personality disorder. Previous studies suggest that such attitudes are influenced by sufferer behaviours, organizational factors and the characteristics of individual professionals, but do similar considerations apply outside health services?

Aim: To identify what events, experiences and factors in the course of daily work with personality-disordered people influence the attitudes and beliefs of prison staff.

Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with prison officers working in a pilot "Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder" Unit within a UK prison.

International variation in containment measures for disturbed psychiatric inpatients: a comparative questionnaire survey.

Background: Disturbed psychiatric inpatients are managed using a range of containment measures (e.g. seclusion, mechanical restraint) whose use differs by country.

Ethics of international clinical research collaboration - the experience of AlloStem.

This paper examines the ethics of international clinical collaboration in stem cell research by focusing on the AlloStem project. AlloStem is an international research programme, financed by the European Union under the Sixth Framework Programme, with the aim of advancing the use of stem cells in treating leukaemia and other haematological diseases. Several areas of ethical importance are explored.

Coercive manoeuvres in a psychiatric intensive care unit.

Coercive manoeuvres in a psychiatric intensive care unit The practice of physical restraint techniques in the management of disturbed behaviour is a significant part of the role of mental health nurses, particularly in Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs). Debate about what constitutes good practice is intense, and the subject of recently issued guidelines by National Institute for Mental Health in England. However, the contribution of other forms of conflict management techniques has tended to be ignored.

What is the impact on individual health of services in general practice settings which offer welfare benefits advice?

Welfare benefits advice services are increasingly being provided on primary care premises. It is assumed that the relief of financial deprivation will also relieve ill health, although there is only limited evidence to support this. This paper reports the findings of a study designed to measure changes in individual health associated with income increase as a result of such advice.

Community psychiatric nurses and the care co-ordinator role: squeezed to provide 'limited nursing'.

Aim: This paper reports a study illuminating the factors that either facilitate or constrain the ability of community psychiatric nurses, in their role as care co-ordinators, to meet service users' and carers' needs.

Background: The Care Programme Approach is the key policy underpinning community-focused mental health services in England, but has been unevenly implemented and is associated with increased inpatient bed use. The care co-ordinator role is central to the Care Programme Approach and is most often held by community psychiatric nurses, but there has been little research into how this role is performed or how it affects the work of community psychiatric nurses and their ability to meet the needs of service users.

Developing career pathways for new nurses: lessons from inner London.

Inner city primary care trusts (PCTs) often have difficulty in recruiting nursing staff, while newly qualified nurses are often unaware of what opportunities community settings offer. This article reports the development of a rotational scheme designed to reduce recruitment problems and to assist understanding by newly qualified nurses of the interface between hospital and primary care. The scheme was jointly run by a PCT, a hospital and an academic unit.

High-risk sexual behaviour among London gay men: no longer increasing.

Among gay men surveyed annually in central London gyms, the percentage reporting high-risk sexual behaviour with a casual partner increased from 6.7% in 1998 to 15.2% in 2001 (P < 0.

Disruptive and dangerous behaviour by patients on acute psychiatric wards in three European centres.

Background: The disturbed behaviour of acute in-patients can have serious consequences, and methods of management are contentious and vary between countries. Little is known about this variation and its relationship to the characteristics of in-patient populations.

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare rates and patterns of disturbed behaviours and containment methods in acute psychiatric wards in three centres in the United Kingdom, Italy and Greece.

The process of gatekeeping in health care research.

Gatekeeping in health care research is the process of permitting or denying access to a selected research site. It is a complex process that researchers should be aware of as the process of gaining the confidence of the various gatekeepers is often time-consuming. This article identifies how gatekeeping occurs at various stages of the research process and highlights the reasons why some gatekeepers may deny access to researchers.

Applying Carper's patterns of knowing to children's nursing today.

A brief overview is given of Carper's fourfundamental patterns of knowing in nursing, that is empirics, aesthetics, personal knowing in nursing and moral knowledge in nursing. Each of the four patterns is then applied to children's nursing to determine how well it relates to children's nursing, and indeed whether this is taught or learnt at either pre-registration or post-registration level. It is suggested that some of the fundamental patterns of knowing are more clearly developed than others with regard to children's nursing.

Writing for publication: adapting academic work into articles.

This article discusses how to transform material worthy of dissemination into a form that leads to successful publication. It focuses on publication of systematic and literature reviews, empirical studies and conceptual analyses undertaken as part of a course of academic study. An increasing number of nurses and midwives are undertaking healthcare-related courses at BSc, MSc, MPhil and PhD level.

Nursing students' and tutors' perceptions of learning and teaching in a clinical skills centre.

Background: Clinical Skills Centres (CSCs) can ease pressure on clinical skills development and assessment in clinical areas; and provide added value through experiential learning and self-directed learning. Published accounts of innovation in CSCs tell part of this story but little is known about perceptions of students and tutors engaged in day-to-day learning and teaching in CSCs.

Methods: This paper reports one strand of a mixed methods study in a busy multidisciplinary CSC: a questionnaire survey of nursing students' and tutors' perceptions of learning and teaching.

Quality criteria for patient advice and liaison services: what do patients and the public want?

Background: Every NHS trust and Primary Care Trust (PCT) in England now has a Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) which provides an identifiable person to whom service users can turn if they have a problem or need information while using the NHS. This paper reports data from a 2-year qualitative study of London PALS.

Objective: To develop patient-centred criteria by which to assess PALS.