The Impact of Transformational Leadership in the Nursing Work Environment and Patients' Outcomes: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: With the increasingly demanding healthcare environment, patient safety issues are only becoming more complex. This urges nursing leaders to adapt and master effective leadership; particularly, transformational leadership (TFL) is shown to scientifically be the most successfully recognized leadership style in healthcare, focusing on relationship building while putting followers in power and emphasizing values and vision. AIM: To examine how transformational leadership affects nurses' job environment and nursing care provided to the patients and patients' outcomes. DESIGN: A systematic literature review was conducted. From 71 reviewed, 23 studies were included (studies included questionnaire surveys and one interview, extracting barriers and facilitators, and analyzing using qualitative synthesis). RESULT: TFL indirectly and directly positively affects nurses' work environment through mediators, including structural empowerment, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Nurses perceived that managers' TFL behavior did not attain excellence in any of the included organizations, highlighting the necessity for additional leadership training to enhance the patient safety culture related to the non-reporting of errors and to mitigate the blame culture within the nursing environment. CONCLUSION: Bringing more focus to leadership education in nursing can make future nursing leaders more effective, which will cultivate efficient teamwork, a quality nursing work environment, and, ultimately, safe and efficient patient outcomes. This study was not registered.

Acceptance of coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination by cancer patients in Cyprus: A cross-sectional study.

INTRODUCTION: The acceptance of an individual to be vaccinated following the introduction of a new vaccine is dependent on multiple factors. Governing factors directing one's decision to be vaccinated against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, however, are currently unknown and the present study aims at researching these factors within the population of cancer patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional self-administered survey was conducted anonymously between 22 January and 12 February 2021, during the second vaccination phase against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in Cyprus. The data were collected via an online questionnaire which was formerly used by previously conducted studies. The Mann-Whitney U test was applied for the comparison of means between bivariate variables, while the Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the comparison of means in variables with more than two groups. In addition, Spearman correlation coefficients were applied to explore the correlation of continuous variables. RESULTS: The sample size consisted of a total of 211 cancer patients, 64.9% of which were women with a mean age of 52.6 ± 12.4 years. The findings of the current research indicate a moderate vaccination acceptance among cancer patients (Μ = 3.3 ± 0.7, R = 1-5). CONCLUSION: During the promotion of a vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 to cancer patients, particular emphasis on specific demographic characteristics, vaccination history and preferred sources of informing the individual are required. In addition, through reviewing the prospective effectiveness and possible outcomes of the specific vaccine according to cancer type and anti-cancer therapy, many of the existing concerns and reservations from cancer patients are expected to be diminished.

Health Workers' knowledge and perception regarding the risk of spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic: A systematic review.

Certain Health Workers (HWs) may have inadequate knowledge and perceptions regarding COVID-19. As a result, they may not be completely aware of the danger/risk involved, which could impact their ability to control the spread of the virus. This systematic review aims to enhance HWs' knowledge and their perception of the spread risk of COVID-19 during the pandemic. A search was conducted in four databases (Medline, CINAHL, Scopus, and ScienceDirect) to locate peer-reviewed studies published in English between January 2020 and April 2020. Eventually, nine articles satisfied the inclusion criteria and were, therefore, included in the present study. Six of the aforementioned studies specifically investigated HWs' perception of risk. Apart from a study that indicated medium perception (min = 56.5%), all other studies found high levels of risk perception (n = 5, max 92.1%). As for HWs' knowledge, apart from two studies that indicated medium percentage levels (min = 56.5%), the rest of the studies report high percentages (n = 7, max = 93.2%). Two of the studies, which assessed the sources of information that HWs use, agree that social media is the most widely used source of information. The findings of this study suggest that HWs had a satisfactory perception of risk during the spread of COVID-19. Although fields with medium knowledge levels were identified, HWs' overall knowledge may also be described as satisfactory. It is also noted that certain demographic characteristics (occupation, age, and years of experience) appear to affect HWs' knowledge and perceptions. The application of educational strategies aiming to provide continuous support to HWs is unanimously recommended by all studies.

Assessment of Knowledge and Perceptions of Health Workers Regarding COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study from Cyprus.

The COVID-19 disease is presently a matter of global public health concern as it could be potentially fatal. Health workers have at the moment, inadequate knowledge of prevention measures, and their erroneous practices may directly increase the risk of spread. As a result, matters are complicated further as far as the chain of infection is concerned. The present cross-sectional study was conducted with 494 Health Worker participants in Cyprus between the 1st and 20th of May and the data were collected via an online questionnaire. The survey was created using information from a previous study as well as current directives published on the WHO website. The statistical software SPSS 22.0 was used for data analysis. The ANOVA test was used for the comparison of quantitative variables, while the Kruskal-Wallis test was used in cases of non-parametric distribution. The Pearson or Spearman coefficients were used to test correlation and the levels of materiality were set to 0,05. Women constituted 66,7% of the participants and 44,8% of all participants were between the age of 30-39 years old. The majority (75,4%) of the participants were Nursing Officers and 44,5% held postgraduate qualifications. HWs appeared to have a positive perception (x̅ = 3.58, SD = 0.53, MR = 1-5) regarding the course of the pandemic and their knowledge of the virus was found to be generally satisfactory. The findings of the current study indicate that in case of a similar global public health crisis, certain educational interventions should be implemented. This could be achieved with the use of an appropriate strategy. As a result, all demographic-working strata of health professionals would be well-educated and informed.