Advanced nursing practice: a review of scopes of practice in cancer care.

The establishment of advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs) has expanded considerably in recent years and shown to result in substantial contributions to numerous fields of health care. Due to advancements in treatments and innovations in medicine, patients with cancer are living longer, requiring a multifactorial holistic approach in which ANPs, due to their skills and knowledge, can be best utilised, as they are able to provide the expert care required at various stages of the patient journey. This article explores scopes of practice from ANPs working with oncology patients in a tertiary cancer centre, making explicit their roles, in addition to highlighting experienced challenges and future directions of care.

Measuring the profiles of the security needs of forensic psychiatric inpatients: Validation of the See, Think, Act Scale.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to develop and validate a Chinese version of the See, Think, Act Scale (C-STA). The relational security of the Department of Forensic Psychiatry of Castle Peak Hospital, which provides territory-wide forensic psychiatric services in Hong Kong, was measured. METHODS: The See, Think, Act Scale was first translated into Chinese, then back-translated into English for comparison, and finally, subject to modification until alignment was achieved. Its content validity and face validity were explored through expert panel evaluation and focus group discussion, respectively. Eighty-nine Chinese mental health professionals were recruited from six service units to measure the relational security of the Department of Forensic Psychiatry using the C-STA. RESULTS: The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was high, with all components exceeding 0.90. The intraclass correlation coefficients for the test-retest reliability of all components ranged from 0.50 to 0.72. Participants had the lowest score on the "patient focus" component (M = 2.56, standard deviation [SD] = 0.32). A significant sex difference in total relational security scores was found (P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: The C-STA is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the relational security of forensic psychiatric services. "Patient focus" might be the target component of relational security for which the Department of Forensic Psychiatry needs to have interventions. The significant sex difference in total relational security scores needs further exploration.

The Southwark Police Surgeon Study 1978-1997: alcohol.

This paper takes routine clinical data from one Forensic Medical Examiner's (FME) practice over 20 years in the London Borough of Southwark. The relationship of alcohol to gender, categories of call, and patterns of variation over time are addressed. Alcohol related calls are found to be significantly associated with males who are ill or injured, but not with victims or perpetrators of violence. There has also been significant increases in alcohol related calls over the study period. There is no evidence to suggest that was influenced by the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).

Poverty, poor services, and compulsory psychiatric admission in England.

BACKGROUND: Compulsory admission is a central feature of psychiatric systems internationally but the factors determining its use within different legal systems are not understood. Numbers of compulsory psychiatric admissions vary widely between areas in England. We examined the hypothesis that variation in rates of detention is related to social deprivation and also to the functioning of local mental health services. METHODS: Rates of detention under sections 2 and 3 of the Mental Health Act (1983) in 1998/9 were obtained in 34 mental health sectors in eight Trusts in England. Measures of socio-economic deprivation and measures of service function were used to conduct an ecological analysis. RESULTS: Compulsory admission is associated with measures of deprivation but there is unexplained variation. The range in rates is higher than allowed for by the resource allocation formula. Some indicators of service quality are independently associated with rates of detention. CONCLUSIONS: Variation in detention rates and its relation to service function need further explanation if the use of compulsion is to be reduced.