Synergy Nursing & Midwifery Research Grand Rounds - October 2024

Join our nursing and midwifery forum!

The forums provide a fantastic networking platform with attendees from various departments across health and academics from the universities.

This forum will be held on Webex and at Meeting Room 1, Level 2, Building 8, The Canberra Hospital.

The forum will be recorded and made available on the SYNERGY website.

Attending this forum will contribute to 1 CPD hour (1 hour) toward your nursing or midwifery registration for the year.

Presentations

2pm

Importance of sleep in maintaining health and wellbeing in Older Adults

Presented by: Associate Professor Ash Smyth

Dr Ash Smyth is an Associate Professor of Nursing with the University of Canberra. Her research interests centre around the role of sleep in health and disease, across the lifespan, in a variety of settings. She is a member of the Australasian Sleep Association Nursing Education Sub-Committee.

This talk will explore the fundamental aspects of sleep physiology and its crucial role in health across the lifespan, with a special focus on sleep in clinical settings. It covers the basics of sleep science, common sleep disorders, and the widespread health impacts of poor sleep, before considering some of the unique challenges and strategies for managing sleep in healthcare environments.

2.30pm

What happened to Mr Smith from bed 4 yesterday? Exploring the impact of patient outcome ambiguity on the lives of emergency nurses

Presented by: Rebecca Caulfield

Rebecca Caulfield is a seasoned emergency clinician with over 13 years of nursing experience. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Emergency Nursing and is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the impact of ambiguity on the professional and personal lives of emergency nurses. Rebecca is passionate about nurse-led research, exploring the experiences of LGBTQIA+ staff members in healthcare and investigating neurodiversity and neurodivergence in healthcare education practices and programs. Rebecca has presented her work at prestigious conferences including the International Conference on Emergency Medicine and the International Conference of Emergency Nurses. She actively serves on the Global Advisory Committee of the Emergency Nurses Association in addition to her clinical, education and research positions to enhance and advance the profession.

More than 8.8 million Australians received care from an Emergency Nurse in 2022-23, in an environment which is often described as chaotic, emotionally charged, dynamic, diverse and complex. This specialist nursing practice environment is unique in that emergency clinicians are often providing first-point-of-contact care for patients across a range of ages and acuities who are often undiagnosed and undifferentiated. Unsurprisingly, research has found emergency nurses at higher risk of various occupational distress injuries as a result of this unique practice environment. A recent literature review identified uncertainty regarding the ultimate trajectory of patients’ outcomes following their emergency department presentation as a potential significant stressor within the emergency nursing profession.

Utilising a mixed-method study design, this project explores the prevalence and impact of patient outcome ambiguity through its quantitative phase while probing the lived experience of ambiguity in the semi-structured interview qualitative phase. Exploring the phenomena of interest through domestic and international participants, this presentation will demonstrate key findings of the quantitative phase to illustrate the prevalence and impact of ambiguity on the professional and personal lives of emergency nurses. Concerningly, this research identifies that more than 90% of emergency nurses have experienced ambiguity related to patient outcomes with more than 75% of participants demonstrating that this ambiguity has negatively impacted their professional practice and 85% identifying that ambiguity has negatively impacted their personal life. These findings speak to the urgent need for conversation, research, attention and action to be taken on this issue for the health and safety of nurses and the greater community.

Questions?

Please direct any questions to synergy@act.gov.au