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The multifaceted responsibilities borne by clinical facilitators can impose a significant strain on their mental and emotional health and well-being. Within nursing and other healthcare professions, the responsibilities of clinical facilitators extend beyond conventional clinical duties to encompass supervising, facilitating, assessing, and supporting students as they transition into professional nursing practice. There is a need for insights into the well-being of clinical facilitators in the face of demanding work conditions, limited resources, and the emotional toll of patient care. This article critically reviews the literature to determine the current state of mental well-being among clinical facilitators in undergraduate health professions education and how they should be supported.
A scoping review guided the study using the Population, Context, Concept framework with a search string incorporating associated Boolean operators. 233 records were retrieved from eight databases and reviewed according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 13 full-text articles were found to be eligible for extraction and analysis.
Major findings resulted in thematising mental health issue characteristics according to high and low job demands and burnout. Literature outlined the causes of mental health issues, including lack of recognition and appreciation, work performance, teaching and learning practices, student characteristics, support structures, and the environment. Recommendations included training, appropriate support systems, workload, guidelines, monitoring, community of practice, and research-oriented support.
Educational institutions must move beyond ad hoc support and implement integrated, strategic initiatives grounded in the principles of the Job-Demand-Control model. Future research should focus on developing and rigorously evaluating multifaceted intervention programmes that address these systemic factors. By investing in the well-being of clinical facilitators, institutions ultimately invest in the quality of future healthcare providers and the safety of the patients they will serve.
This article sets the tone for factors to consider and provides recommendations for educational institutions to better support the mental well-being of clinical facilitators.
The harmful health effects of children’s exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) are well established. Most SHS exposure now occurs in the home, in low-income households. Previous research suggests that using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in the home can help with temporary smoking abstinence and could reduce smoking indoors. This pilot randomised controlled trial tests the feasibility of providing parents, carers and relatives with posted-to-home nicotine replacement therapy alongside fortnightly telephone support to reduce children’s exposure to SHS.
100 participants are being recruited through existing National Health Service (NHS) Lanarkshire initiatives and social media. Parents/carers who are at least 18 years old, smoke in the home and care for one or more children aged 0–16 years are eligible to take part. Participants are randomised to either the intervention (Group A) or control (Group B) arm. Group A receives NRT posted to their home for 12 weeks free of charge, alongside fortnightly telephone calls and materials to support them in reducing children’s exposure to SHS. Group B is signposted to the Scottish Government’s ‘Take it Right Outside’ website which provides interactive advice on creating a smoke-free home. To quantify the child’s exposure to SHS, participants instal an air quality monitor to measure fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations in their living room for 7 days at baseline and 12-week follow-up and/or collect and post saliva samples from their youngest child (age 5 or over) for cotinine analysis. Qualitative interviews explore intervention experience, NRT use and adherence and changes to home-smoking behaviours/smoking-related expenditure. Descriptive data analyses will be performed to address the feasibility of recruitment, randomisation, retention and adherence, data collection and intervention delivery. Analysis will also include pre/post changes (paired t-test) in both child’s salivary cotinine and PM2.5 levels to provide preliminary data on intervention effectiveness and difference between the intervention and control arms of the study. Health economics and resource use data will be collected and assessed for completeness, to test the process of data collection and estimate mean cost of both study arms.
NHS ethical approval has been obtained by the West of Scotland Research Ethics Service (15 December 2023, ref 23/WS/0153; 13 December 2024, ref AM01). The findings will be disseminated to participants, funders, NHS Lanarkshire and other health services, and in peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences. Findings will inform new approaches that are timely and important, providing valuable evidence to help reduce children’s exposure to SHS in the home in Scotland and elsewhere.
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