Political Efficacy and Health Policy Advocacy among nurses as mediated by Political Astuteness

INTRODUCTION@#Nurses' expertise and recommendations from nurses are essential sources of opinions and recommendations for policy development. Nurses must be actively involved in politics, and nursing could play an essential role in shaping health policy. However, the influence of political efficacy, political astuteness, and health policy advocacy exposes a gap in the current knowledge.@*DESIGN AND METHODS@#The study utilized descriptive correlational design and mediating analysis. Purposive sampling was used to select six hospitals in Ghana, and simple random sampling was used to select five hundred and seventy-nine nurses. The study used the Political Efficacy Scale, Social Justice Advocacy Scale, and the Political Astuteness Inventory. The data were analyzed by mean and Standard deviation, Pearson coefficient, ANOVA, and GLS mediation.@*RESULTS@#Nurses in Ghana had a low political efficacy and health policy advocacy. Moreover, political astuteness had moderate astuteness. A Pearson Correlation coefficient showed a moderately significant positive relationship between political efficacy and health policy advocacy. Furthermore, political astuteness and health policy advocacy showed a statistically significant low positive relationship. There was no significant difference in political efficacy and health policy advocacy when age, academic qualification, nurses' rank, and years of professional experience were considered. Political astuteness partially mediated the relationship between political efficacy and health policy advocacy.@*CONCLUSION@#Nurses in Ghana have limited belief in their ability to understand and affect politics and have limited participation in healthcare advocacy initiatives. Furthermore, nurse respondents have the adequate ability of a nurse to understand political knowledge, political participation, and legislative understanding to advocate health policies.

Paternal care during miscarriage: A concept analysis

@#Caring is the fundamental essence of nursing practice. Swanson's theory of caring provides the process of care for women who have experienced miscarriage. However, there is a gap in theory and knowledge in providing care to fathers experiencing a miscarriage. Studies have shown that the experience of fathers during a miscarriage is different from their wives. According to Jones et al (2019), fathers' experience during a neonatal loss is different from their partners. They feel isolated. Thus, men feel that they are disconnected from their partners, and also are not involved in the caring process, are overwhelmed by the situation, fathers feel that the role fathers play as a protector for their partner was not done well and they experience a lack of support from healthcare providers during that period. This concept of paternal care during a miscarriage is to help fathers who are experiencing neonatal loss by applying the appropriate nursing action to provide the necessary nursing care. The concept analysis methodology from Walker and Avant (2005) would define the concept, attributes, antecedents, consequences, cases, and empirical referent on paternal care during a miscarriage. This paper concludes that providing paternal care to fathers during miscarriage helps them deal with the loss and understand the process they are going through. Therefore, there is a need to develop a theory that provides the care process to fathers going through a miscarriage. Hence, the theory of paternal care during a miscarriage is proposed.