Preparing nurse educators for NMC standards for student supervision and assessment: the impact 4 years on.

Four years on from its launch in 2018 (at the time of writing), the authors provide an up-to-date efficacy assessment of the ongoing implementation of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Future Nurse: Standards of Proficiency for Registered Nurses (NMC) (2018a). Although these standards have comprehensively transformed the mentorship practices of nursing education courses within higher education, this article provides the first attempt to gauge and synthesise attitudes towards their implementation. Presenting the results of an evaluative survey that collates educators' current views on the implementation of these NMC standards, the authors detail and analyse the past and continuing impacts of this paradigm shift on staff, students, and practice. The findings contribute to the nascent body of knowledge, primarily clustering around four interlinked themes: slow acclimatisation to new models of assessment and supervision; variation in levels of preparation; prohibitive workloads; and role conflict. The authors conclude by providing a recommendation that more robust training resources around the NMC's standards are implemented nationally, in order to provide consistency of delivery by educators across the sector.

How to undertake annual appraisals and ongoing performance reviews.

Annual appraisals, which are mandatory in most healthcare organisations, are crucial for enhancing staff performance and embedding a culture of continuous improvement within teams. Appraisals can be usefully complemented by ongoing performance reviews, which support nurse managers and staff to identify and address issues in a timely manner. The term 'performance management' often has negative connotations, but it can be a powerful tool for staff development and positive learning experiences. This article supports nurse managers to understand how to adequately prepare for and conduct appraisals and performance reviews. Reflective activity 'How to' articles can help to update your practice and ensure it remains evidence-based. Apply this article to your practice. Reflect on and write a short account of.

Does it work? Using a Meta-Impact score to examine global effects in quasi-experimental intervention studies.

The evaluation of applied psychological interventions in the workplace or elsewhere is challenging. Randomisation and matching are difficult to achieve and this often results in substantial heterogeneity within intervention and control groups. As a result, traditional comparison of group means using null hypothesis significance testing may mask effects experienced by some participants. Using longitudinal studies of coaching interventions designed to provide support for dyslexic employees, this study describes and evaluates a different approach using a Meta-Impact score. We offer a conceptual rationale for our method, illustrate how this score is calculated and analysed, and show how it highlights person-specific variations in how participants react and respond to interventions. We argue that Meta-Impact is an incremental supplement to traditional variable-centric group-wise comparisons and can more accurately demonstrate in practice the extent to which an intervention worked. Such methods are needed for applied research, where personalized intervention protocols may require impact analysis for policy, legal and ethical purposes, despite modest sample sizes.

Factors Affecting the Participation of Physically Disabled Children and Young People in Out-of-School Activities in the United Kingdom: A Qualitative Study.

Physically disabled children and young people (PDC&YP) face many challenges when participating in out-of-school activities. PDC&YP should have the same choices and opportunities as other C&YP: to forge friendships locally and to access out-of-school activities. However, PDC&YP have fewer opportunities than their non-disabled peers due to challenges such as access, support, and suitable provision. This multi-method qualitative study examined the factors affecting participation of PDC&YP in out-of-school activities. The perspectives of PDC&YP and parents were sought using a range of data collection tools. These included interviews, focus groups, and creative focus groups with 13 PDC&YP and 19 parents. Play-based creative focus groups were specifically designed for PDC&YP aged 7 to 17 years. The study demonstrated that PDC&YP enjoy specialist disabled activities to meet others 'like them' but want more local opportunities to do this. Some PDC&YP and parents felt they were not disabled enough for 'disabled' activities but not able enough for mainstream. PDC&YP requiring personal care were a 'hidden' group who are at risk of missing out on experiences that they are entitled to. The study concludes by presenting the need to improve provision through disability awareness training and a co-ordinated partnership approach to be employed by the local authority to raise the profile of disability and 'bridge the gap' between service users and service providers. The social needs of children require the same focus and attention to aid their wellbeing and to enhance out-of-school lives.

Out-of-school lives of physically disabled children and young people in the United Kingdom: a qualitative literature review.

Currently there appears to be few opportunities and little evidence of physically disabled children and young people (C&YP) participating in mainstream social activities. A qualitative review was undertaken to examine the factors affecting physically disabled C&YP (8-15 years) in the United Kingdom participating in out-of-school activities. Views and experiences were explored from the perspective of the service users and providers to assess current provision and to determine the need for future research into factors that may affect participation. Searches were conducted across eight databases, the references of the included studies were checked and the websites were searched. Studies that used a qualitative design that examined the views relating to out-of-school activities were included. Nine papers were identified, which included three peer-reviewed papers and six pieces of grey literature and pertinent government documents to include views and experiences of out-of-school activity provision. The main themes emerging from the review were the need for social inclusion, out-of-school activities run by volunteers and accessibility, with threads throughout, which require further research including parental influence, provision, training and attitudes. This review highlights the absence of the service user's voice and sheds light on the limited provision and barriers affecting participation in out-of-school activities.

Performance of a multianalyte test as an aid for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer in symptomatic women.

BACKGROUND: Concomitant with the development of in vitro diagnostic multivariate index assays (IVDMIAs) to improve the diagnostic efficiency of ovarian cancer detection is the need to identify appropriate biostatistical approaches to assess improvements in risk predication. In this study, we assessed the utility of three different approaches for comparing diagnostic efficiency of an ovarian cancer multivariate assay in a retrospective case--control phase 2 biomarker trial. The control cohort included both disease-free women and women with benign gynecological conditions to more accurately reflect the target population of symptomatic women. METHODS: The study cohort comprised plasma samples from 244 healthy controls, 223 women with benign gynecological conditions, 53 borderline ovarian cancer cases and 222 women with malignant epithelial ovarian cancer. A multivariate classification model was developed that incorporated plasma concentrations of CA125, C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid-A (SAA), interleukin-6 (IL6) and interleukin-8 (IL8) that were measured using in vitro diagnostics assays on medical device approved clinical analysers. The posterior probability values derived from the implemented algorithm were used for comparisons of the diagnostic performance between the multianalyte panel and CA125 using multiple methods; area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics curve, integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) and net reclassification improvement (NRI). RESULTS: Each of the biomarkers displayed significantly elevated plasma concentrations in malignant ovarian cancer patients compared with either benign or control subjects. For the discrimination of borderline and malignant ovarian cancer from control and benign subjects, the multivariate classification model showed a significantly greater AUC than that for CA125 alone (88.4% versus 84.3%, respectively, p < 0.001). At a posterior probability threshold of 0.5, the IVDMIA delivered a specificity of 92.3% and a sensitivity of 76.4%. When set at a specificity of 95%, the multimarker diagnostic delivered a sensitivity of 69.5% compared with 62.5% for CA125. Enhanced diagnostic performance of the IVDMIA over the use of CA125 alone was confirmed statistically by alternative comparisons using IDI and NRI. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms in an independent sample set that a blood-based multianalyte assay has significant advantages over CA125 for distinguishing symptomatic women with borderline and malignant ovarian cancer from controls or those with benign disease.