The enigma: Decision-making to transfer residents to the emergency department; communication and care delivery between emergency department staff and residential aged care facilities' nurses.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the experience of nurses involved in decision-making to transfer residents from a residential aged care facility (RACF) to their local hospital emergency department. This paper reports on the findings of the second phase of a two-phase study. METHODS: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with 19 aged care nurses were conducted. Interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was carried out. RESULTS: The analysis revealed five major themes that influenced decision-making in relation to the transfer of a resident from the residential aged care facility to the emergency department: conflict with key stakeholders; knowledge and experience; policy and process; stakeholder perception; and recognition and support. CONCLUSIONS: Robust outreach programs, support from other health-care professionals, and improving interdisciplinary understanding and communication between aged care nurses, paramedics and the emergency department would be advantageous to ensure effective care delivery and decision-making.

Conducting integrative reviews: a guide for novice nursing researchers.

BACKGROUND: Integrative reviews within healthcare promote a holistic understanding of the research topic. Structure and a comprehensive approach within reviews are important to ensure the reliability in their findings. AIM: This paper aims to provide a framework for novice nursing researchers undertaking integrative reviews. DISCUSSION: Established methods to form a research question, search literature, extract data, critically appraise extracted data and analyse review findings are discussed and exemplified using the authors' own review as a comprehensive and reliable approach for the novice nursing researcher undertaking an integrative literature review. CONCLUSION: Providing a comprehensive audit trail that details how an integrative literature review has been conducted increases and ensures the results are reproducible. The use of established tools to structure the various components of an integrative review increases robustness and readers' confidence in the review findings. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Novice nursing researchers may increase the reliability of their results by employing a framework to guide them through the process of conducting an integrative review.