To examine the paradox of representation without power in nursing leadership and to highlight how gendered hierarchies persist in academic, clinical, and policy arenas despite nursing's predominantly female composition.
Existing systems of evaluation and promotion often reproduce inequities by undervaluing relational and collaborative leadership styles—forms of leadership intrinsic to nursing practice. This commentary draws on global and contextual perspectives to advocate for accreditation and institutional metrics that integrate equity indicators and recognize inclusive leadership as a marker of excellence.
Advancing gender equity in leadership is both an ethical and strategic imperative. Embedding equity education and inclusive leadership development within nursing curricula from the earliest stages of professional formation is essential to reshape the future of nursing leadership.
Promoting gender equity in leadership will strengthen nursing's contribution to health systems, enhance organizational resilience, and advance equitable patient care.
Increasing physical activity and effectively managing stress can positively impact immunity and may reduce the duration of respiratory tract infections (RTIs). As part of a larger trial, participants accessed a digital behavioural change intervention that encouraged physical activity and stress management to reduce RTIs. We aimed to understand the barriers and facilitators to engaging in physical activity and stress reduction.
A qualitative process analysis from semistructured interviews of the behavioural intervention in a randomised control trial.
Primary care in the UK.
34 participants (aged 18–82 years) in the behavioural intervention arm.
The larger trial involved four interventions: a gel-based antiviral nasal spray; a saline water-based nasal spray; a behavioural intervention; usual care. In this study, we focused on participants allocated to the behavioural intervention. The behavioural intervention included two components: one to increase physical activity (getting active) and another for stress management techniques (healthy paths) to reduce RTIs.
We analysed the interviews using thematic analysis with a critical realist perspective (focusing on). We developed five themes: digital intervention engagement, views on intervention allocation, the role of getting active, the role of healthy paths and benefits reinforcing behaviour. Participants’ views on the relevance and benefit of the behavioural intervention shaped their engagement with the intervention website and behaviour. Facilitators of intervention engagement included awareness of inactivity, goal setting, increasing immunity, positive outcome expectations and benefits from changing behaviour. Barriers to engagement included negative outcome expectations, such as around efficacy of the behaviours.
Overall, the results highlighted the importance of positive expectations for a digital intervention promoting physical activity and stress management for RTI reduction. Future interventions should consider how to clearly communicate a broad range of perceived benefits to users.
The trial was prospectively registered with International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry (17936080).
In qualitative research, there are different approaches to defining and engaging with social reality. Epistemology, as the study of knowledge and knowledge creation, influences the methodologies and theories used by researchers. A growing literature questions the universality of Western-centric and Global North research methodologies and theories and highlights their Western epistemological roots. While Western frameworks are appropriate for Western contexts, it is a fallacy to assume that they represent global realities, thereby marginalising Global South knowledge systems. Thus, the aim of this scoping review is to analyse the underlying epistemologies, methodologies or theories that are evident in qualitative research conducted by researchers from the Global North in their research on, for or with people from the Global South.
The review will be conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute framework for scoping reviews. A search strategy will be developed to identify published and unpublished literature in CINAHL, Embase, Google Scholar, MEDLINE, ProQuest, PsycINFO and Web of Science. All potential papers will be exported to the reference manager Zotero, and the results will be uploaded to Rayyan. Studies are selected using a three-step process and documented using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart. The abstracted studies will then be collated using the PAGER framework to identify the patterns, advances, gaps, evidence and recommendations that help to understand the review question.
As this is a secondary analysis, our research does not require ethical approval, but we will scrutinise all included studies for inclusion of an ethical approval statement. We intend to share our findings through peer-reviewed international journals and presentations at conferences, as well as collaborating with colleagues in related fields.
The protocol for this scoping review has been registered with the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5BUZX).