A realist literature review of transition to adult services by young people with life-limiting conditions in ireland.

Background As a result of improvements in care and treatment more young people with life-limiting conditions are now living beyond childhood, meaning they must make the transition from children's to adult services. The loss of long-standing relationships with providers of children's services combines with poor co-ordination of services to make this a daunting prospect for young people and their families. However, there is little evidence on transition services for young people with life limiting conditions, with few models of good practice in the literature.


Aims The purpose of this review was to determine the factors that promote or hinder the transition to adult services for young adults with life limiting conditions, and identify gaps to be addressed.


Methods A comprehensive search of the literature was undertaken using key terms, of the following databases; MEDLINE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 314 articles were sourced and inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to highlight the most relevant literature.


Results Studies were reviewed using a realist review approach and three themes emerged from the literature. Barriers and facilitators to the transition process were identified associated with: 1. The patient 2. Parents/carers 3. The organisation.


Conclusion It is unclear from the literature what the specific factors are that promote or hinder the transition process for young adults with life limiting conditions who go through the transition from children's to adult services, therefore, research is required to identify the factors that promote and hinder the transition process in Ireland. This research is currently being carried out by the author as part of Doctoral studies. The three year full time Doctoral study commenced in January 2013 and is funded by the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care.

Does vicarious traumatisation affect oncology nurses?:A literature review

It is widely documented that nurses experience work-related stress [Quine, L., 1998. Effects of stress in an NHS trust: a study. Nursing Standard 13 (3), 36-41; Charnley, E., 1999. Occupational stress in the newly qualified staff nurse. Nursing Standard 13 (29), 32-37; McGrath, A., Reid, N., Boore, J., 2003. Occupational stress in nursing. International Journal of Nursing Studies 40, 555-565; McVicar, A., 2003. Workplace stress in nursing: a literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 44 (6), 633-642; Bruneau, B., Ellison, G., 2004. Palliative care stress in a UK community hospital: evaluation of a stress-reduction programme. International Journal of Palliative Nursing 10 (6), 296-304; Jenkins, R., Elliott, P., 2004. Stressors, burnout and social support: nurses in acute mental health settings. Journal of Advanced Nursing 48 (6), 622-631], with cancer nursing being identified as a particularly stressful occupation [Hinds, P.S., Sanders, C.B., Srivastava, D.K., Hickey, S., Jayawardene, D., Milligan, M., Olsen, M.S., Puckett, P., Quargnenti, A., Randall, E.A., Tyc, V., 1998. Testing the stress-response sequence model in paediatric oncology nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 28 (5), 1146-1157; Barnard, D., Street, A., Love, A.W., 2006. Relationships between stressors, work supports and burnout among cancer nurses. Cancer Nursing 29 (4), 338-345]. Terminologies used to capture this stress are burnout [Pines, A.M., and Aronson, E., 1988. Career Burnout: Causes and Cures. Free Press, New York], compassion stress [Figley, C.R., 1995. Compassion Fatigue. Brunner/Mazel, New York], emotional contagion [Miller, K.I., Stiff, J.B., Ellis, B.H., 1988. Communication and empathy as precursors to burnout among human service workers. Communication Monographs 55 (9), 336-341] or simply the cost of caring (Figley, 1995). However, in the mental health field such as psychology and counselling, there is terminology used to captivate this impact, vicarious traumatisation. Vicarious traumatisation is a process through which the therapist's inner experience is negatively transformed through empathic engagement with client's traumatic material [Pearlman, L.A., Saakvitne, K.W., 1995a. Treating therapists with vicarious traumatization and secondary traumatic stress disorders. In: Figley, C.R. (Ed.), Compassion Fatigue: Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those Who Treat the Traumatized. Brunner/Mazel, New York, pp. 150-177]. Trauma not only affects individuals who are primarily present, but also those with whom they discuss their experience. If an individual has been traumatised as a result of a cancer diagnosis and shares this impact with oncology nurses, there could be a risk of vicarious traumatisation in this population. However, although Thompson [2003. Vicarious traumatisation: do we adequately support traumatised staff? The Journal of Cognitive Rehabilitation 24-25] suggests that vicarious traumatisation is a broad term used for workers from any profession, it has not yet been empirically determined if oncology nurses experience vicarious traumatisation. This purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of vicarious traumatisation and argue that it should be explored in oncology nursing. The review will highlight that empirical research in vicarious traumatisation is largely limited to the mental health professions, with a strong recommendation for the need to empirically determine whether this concept exists in oncology nursing.

Resilience and Burnout in Child protection social work: Individual and organisational themes from a systematic literature review

Child protection social work is acknowledged as a very stressful occupation, with high turnover and poor retention of staff being a major concern. This paper highlights themes that emerged from findings of sixty-five articles that were included as part of a systematic literature review. The review focused on the evaluation of research findings, which considered individual and organisational factors associated with resilience or burnout in child protection social work staff. The results identified a range of individual and organisational themes for staff in child protection social work. Nine themes were identified in total. These are categorised under ‘Individual’ and ‘Organisational’ themes. Themes categorised as individual included personal history of maltreatment, training and preparation for child welfare, coping, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. Those classified as organisational included workload, social support and supervision, organisational culture and climate, organisational and professional commitment, and job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The range of factors is discussed with recommendations and areas for future research are highlighted.

Knowledge translation in men’s health research: development and delivery of content for use online

Background: Men can be hard to reach with face-to-face health-related information, while increasingly, research shows that they are seeking health information from online sources. Recognizing this trend, there is merit in developing innovative online knowledge translation (KT) strategies capable of translating research on men’s health into engaging health promotion materials. While the concept of KT has become a new mantra for researchers wishing to bridge the gap between research evidence and improved health outcomes, little is written about the process, necessary skills, and best practices by which researchers can develop online knowledge translation.
Objective: Our aim was to illustrate some of the processes and challenges involved in, and potential value of, developing research knowledge online to promote men’s health.

Methods: We present experiences of KT across two case studies of men’s health. First, we describe a study that uses interactive Web apps to translate knowledge relating to Canadian men’s depression. Through a range of mechanisms, study findings were repackaged with the explicit aim of raising awareness and reducing the stigma associated with men’s depression and/or help-seeking. Second, we describe an educational resource for teenage men about unintended pregnancy, developed for delivery in the formal Relationship and Sexuality Education school curricula of Ireland, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom), and South Australia. The intervention is based around a Web-based interactive film drama entitled “If I Were Jack”.

Results: For each case study, we describe the KT process and strategies that aided development of credible and well-received online content focused on men’s health promotion. In both case studies, the original research generated the inspiration for the interactive online content and the core development strategy was working with a multidisciplinary team to develop this material through arts-based approaches. In both cases also, there is an acknowledgment of the need for gender and culturally sensitive information. Both aimed to engage men by disrupting stereotypes about men, while simultaneously addressing men through authentic voices and faces. Finally, in both case studies we draw attention to the need to think beyond placement of content online to delivery to target audiences from the outset.

Conclusions: The case studies highlight some of the new skills required by academics in the emerging paradigm of translational research and contribute to the nascent literature on KT. Our approach to online KT was to go beyond dissemination and diffusion to actively repackage research knowledge through arts-based approaches (videos and film scripts) as health promotion tools, with optimal appeal, to target male audiences. Our findings highlight the importance of developing a multidisciplinary team to inform the design of content, the importance of adaptation to context, both in terms of the national implementation context and consideration of gender-specific needs, and an integrated implementation and evaluation framework in all KT work.