Best practice recommendations for healthy work environments for nurses: An integrative literature review

Healthy work environments that maximise the health and well-being of nurses are essential in achieving good patient and societal outcomes, as well as optimal organisational performance. While studies have been conducted on healthy work environments, there is no available evidence that an integrative literature review summarising best-practice recommendations related to healthy work environments has been conducted before. This review aimed to summarise existing best-practice recommendations related to a healthy work environment for nurses. An integrative literature review following the approach adapted from Whittemore and Knafl was used. Existing guidelines related to healthy work environments for nurses were searched. EBSCOhost (CINAHL, Medline), Biomed Central, Science Direct, PubMed and Google Scholar and organisational websites via Google were searched, followed by a citation search. Twelve guidelines were identified for data extraction and synthesis, and themes were subsequently formulated. Four themes emerged from the integrative literature review regarding a healthy work environment for nurses: (1) the need for effective nursing leadership, (2) effective communication as central to enhancement of a healthy environment, (3) effective teamwork as an integral part of a healthy work environment and (4) the need for professional autonomy. In summary, a healthy work environment for nurses requires leadership, effective communication, teamwork and professional autonomy.

Family environment, socioeconomic conditions and childhood health and wellbeing in informal settlements in Mozambique

Background. A possible relationship between slum residence and children's health and wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa has been relatively under-researched.Objective. To investigate the relationship between the type of area of residence and children's and adolescents' health and wellbeing in urban Mozambique.Methods. Descriptive and logistic regression techniques were employed on data from 1 913 children and 798 adolescents, to analyse several key outcomes.Results. The descriptive findings indicate that children in slum areas are the most disadvantaged, followed by those in quasi-slum areas,in terms of school enrolment, health and the type of care received in the home. Similar descriptive results were found for the adolescents'outcomes. Multivariate analyses showed that compared with children in slum areas, those in non-slum areas were more likely to be attending school (odds ratio (OR) 4.22; confidence interval (CI) 1.73 - 10.31), less likely to be typically sick (OR 0.26; CI 0.14 - 0.47) and less likely to be left alone in the household (OR 0.29; CI 0.18 - 0.48). Adolescents in non-slum areas tended to have completed ≥6 years of education (OR 3.01; CI 1.78 - 5.07), to be aware of HIV/AIDS programmes (OR 4.29; CI 2.43 - 7.55), to believe that HIV/AIDS may be transmitted through unprotected sex (OR 13.01; CI 3.76 - 45.02) and to have parents or caregivers who had ever talked to them about matters related to sex (OR 3.15; CI 1.76 - 5.65). Family structure and sowcioeconomic characteristics, together, account for most of the differences between slum and quasi-slum areasparticularlchildren's outcomes.Conclusion. The health and the wellbeing of children and adolescents in slums is negatively affected, compared with other urban places in Mozambique. However, for children, family structure and other socioeconomic factors remove most slum/quasi-slum effects