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To investigate factors influencing the implementation of advanced practice nursing roles within healthcare organisations in seven European countries from the perspective of advanced practice nurses.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted between September 2021 and December 2022, involving advanced practice nurses from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands. The countries were selected to represent different stages of implementing advanced practice nursing roles, from emerging to well-established.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to address five domains: patient care, practice patterns, policy and legal, educational and workforce-related factors. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared tests and correspondence analysis were employed to identify patterns and country-specific differences across these domains of implementation factors.
A total of 491 advanced practice nurses participated in the study. While almost three-quarters of the participants indicated satisfaction with their job, the study highlighted multifaceted factors influencing the implementation of advanced practice nursing roles across countries. The Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium reported mainly facilitators, whereas Finland, Iceland and Germany noted barriers or a lack of knowledge. Spain mostly reported neutral or moderate positions. Key challenges included role ambiguity, interprofessional collaboration gaps, limited managerial support, workload imbalances, limited mentorship and underutilised competencies. Results also indicated that advanced practice nurses are partially hindered by operating in isolation from other professions.
The findings emphasise the need for robust organisational support, interprofessional collaboration and clear role definitions to facilitate the integration of advanced practice nursing roles. Addressing professional isolation through networking and mentorship is crucial to sustaining the advanced practice nursing workforce.
Policy should prioritise support for advanced practice nursing, including structured mentoring and networking opportunities. Further research on advanced practice nurses' well-being and long-term role sustainability in Europe is recommended.
What problem did the study address? What were the main findings? Where and on whom will the research have an impact?
This study reported factors influencing advanced practice nurse role implementation across seven European countries with different levels of role development. Key challenges included role ambiguity, interprofessional collaboration gaps and limited support. The findings can guide healthcare managers and policymakers on the key factors to consider when integrating advanced practice nursing roles into their teams.
People in prison experience disproportionate health burdens compared with community-based populations, including elevated rates of infectious and non-communicable diseases, mental illness and substance use disorders. Previous studies have consistently shown increased rates of mortality following release from incarceration, particularly from external (unnatural) causes such as suicide and violence. However, evidence on mortality incidence during imprisonment is scarce, and many deaths may be preventable through targeted health and prevention interventions. This study aims to synthesise worldwide evidence on all-cause mortality incidence in prisons.
We will conduct a worldwide registry study combined with a systematic literature review and meta-regression analysis. Eligible sources will report deaths among incarcerated people between 2005 and 2025 at the national or, where more appropriate, the subnational jurisdictional level. Mortality data will be retrieved from official reports of prison administrations and direct contact with prison authorities. Also, data from international databases and the scientific literature will be reviewed. Incidence rates of all-cause mortality per 100 000 person-years will be calculated and reported for each jurisdiction, alongside standardised mortality ratios comparing imprisoned populations with general population estimates.
Since the study relies on anonymised routine data registries available from different sources, an exemption certificate was granted by the Ethics Committee of Diego Portales University (UDP) in Santiago, Chile. Findings will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Patient safety culture plays a crucial role in reducing clinical errors. By improving healthcare professionals’ and patients’ understanding of human fallibility and error attribution, patient care can be enhanced, fostering greater engagement from both groups. A Just Culture approach, which balances accountability and learning from errors, is a key factor in fostering this safety culture. The DECIDE Project aims to: (1) examine the conceptualisation of human fallibility within and beyond healthcare, (2) identify barriers and facilitators to Just Culture adoption, (3) assess the impact of psychoeducational interventions on professionals’ and social leaders’ attitudes toward clinical errors and (4) develop a roadmap for Just Culture implementation in healthcare.
A 36-month mixed-methods study including qualitative research, a survey of 1255 healthcare professionals, an experimental study with 180 participants (60 per arm) testing interventions based on cognitive dissonance and reasoned action theories and a consensus conference to develop a Just Culture roadmap. Participants include professionals from hospitals, primary care, long-term care, nursing homes and social leaders in Spain. The qualitative data collected during stages 1 and 4 will be analysed using MAXQDA software. In identifying factors related to the implementation of Just Culture during stage 2, ANOVA, t-tests and multiple linear regression will be conducted. To examine the effects of the interventions in phase 3, a linear mixed-effects model for repeated measures will be employed.
This study has received ethical approval from three institutional review boards. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations and policy recommendations aimed at integrating Just Culture into national and international patient safety strategies. By promoting a constructive approach to errors, the project could enhance incident reporting, strengthen professional engagement in safety policies and foster a culture of learning and accountability. Its findings will guide policy recommendations for integrating Just Culture into national and international patient safety strategies, with potential applications beyond Spain.
The needs of patients in palliative care (PC) are multiple and changing. Several tools assess them, but there is a lack of homogeneity among them. A specific diagnostic tool to assess complexity in PC (IDC-Pal: Instrumento Diagnóstico de la Complejidad en Cuidados Paliativos, in Spanish) was created in community and hospital settings with 36 items to diagnose PC complexity, but its application in primary care is difficult.
(1) To generate an adapted version to primary care of the IDC-Pal tool to identify and stratify PC complexity in the adult population. (2) To determine face, content, criterion and construct validity and reliability of the new instrument.
There are three phases of clinimetric cross-sectional observational validation study: Phase 0: Review of the original tool structure suitability for its use in primary care setting by a committee (researchers and the original developer team). Phase 1: Expert consensus phase by Delphi technique with physicians, nurses and social workers from primary care and PC. Phase 2: Empirical validation of the resulting tool in primary care using a cross-sectional descriptive design involving physicians and case manager nurses from across Andalucia, who will recruit adult patients with PC needs from healthcare centres that accept to participate in the study. Reliability (Cronbach’s alpha, McDonald’s omega, interclass correlation coefficient) and construct validity (exploratory factor analysis) analysis will be carried out; convergent criterion validity will be assessed with the NEC-PAL (Necesidades Paliativas Questionnaire, in Spanish) instrument. Differences by gender, type of professional and place where it is administered will be explored. Interobserver reliability analyses will be carried out using intraclass correlation coefficient, Bland-Altman plots and concordance analysis. Phase 0–1 results were expected by 2025 and Phase 2 results by 2026. Reporting method: CRISP checklist. This protocol was conducted without patient or public participation.
This study evaluates a novel, co-designed tool to diagnose PC complexity to inform practice recommendations for a more efficient allocation of resources that may be included in future clinical practice guidelines. The study has been approved by the Provincial Research Ethics Committee of Málaga as of July 2023 and will be conducted in accordance with the principles established in the Declaration of Helsinki, the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, and the requirements established in Spanish legislation. The study conforms to the norms of good clinical practice. All participants in the Delphi study must express their agreement to participate in the survey by providing informed consent (IC) before beginning the questionnaire. For the development of Phase 2, the primary care professionals who agree to participate will sign a researcher commitment, and the patients included in the study will sign a written IC before the data collection. Dissemination of the results will inform future research on the appropriate diagnosis of PC complexity in the primary care setting, which is of paramount importance due to its gatekeeper position. Dissemination will be aimed at academics and healthcare professionals through publications, presentations and training workshops on the use of the diagnostic tool.
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