Male or nurse what comes first? Challenges men face on their journey to nurse registration

Objective: This paper aims to provide an account of the first phase of a qualitative longitudinal study that explored the initial challenges men in nursing face to become registered. What is known is that men, a minority group within nursing, face the usual challenges of all new nurses in their quest to register as nurses. In addition, they have added pressures that hinder their quest due to being male. Primary Argument: An Australian nursing shortage is looming due to nurses retiring from this female-dominate profession. Hence, the retention of men in nursing is an area requiring attention in order to support a sustainable workforce. Subjects and Setting: Nine newly graduated male registered nurses participated. These nurses had recently commenced employment in the Western Australian metropolitan health region. Findings: Individual face-to-face interviews produced the theme of role misconception with a major focus on male or nurse what comes first. This theme was derived from the categories of gender stereotyping and marginalisation. Conclusion: This study suggests the need for a gender-neutral image when promoting nursing within and outside the professional environment. Furthermore, consideration for a professional title mutually accepted by both women and men in nursing, with the gender-neutral ‘nurse’ title preferred by the men in this study. Moreover to acknowledge that men in nursing will augment a technical savvy workforce that will complement emergent complex nursing practices, and enhance a more comprehensive Australian nursing workforce that will assist with meeting the health care needs of a diverse population

The essence of helping: Significant others and nurses in action draw men into nursing

Background: Nurses are ageing placing nursing workforce sustainability under threat. An untapped potential resource of men in nursing exists within Australia. Objective: The aim of the first phase of this longitudinal study was to investigate why men choose nursing. Design: Qualitative methodological approach used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Research question: “What are the experiences of male graduate nurses regarding their career choice?” Method: The IPA method focused on personal subjective experience where the participants’ own sense-making is important. Discussions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a format relevant to IPA. Participants: Purposeful snowball sampling recruited nine nurses. Findings: The “essence of helping” permeated the key theme through significant others and career choice triggers impacting on their decision to enter nursing. Conclusion: Exposure to nurses in action is purported to enhance the awareness of nursing as a career option for men that may contribute to increased recruitment of men into nursing

Enhancing the ability of nurses and midwives to promote breastfeeding: a longitudinal study

Abstract: The research aimed to determine the effectiveness of the Lactation Adviser Program (LAP), six months following an educational intervention for nurses and midwives. Sixty one (61) participants were involved in the research, the second phase of a two phase, longitudinal study. The intervention involved twelve two hour sessions designed to increase nurses' and midwives' knowledge, attitudes and confidence toward lactation management in order to enable them to more appropriately promote breastfeeding among their clients. Using repeated measures MANOVA, the results showed the LAP intervention produced significantly higher knowledge scores in the experimental group compared to the control group over the time period. In addition, the interaction between knowledge and study group was significant demonstrating that the intervention had an effect on participant's knowledge six months following the program. Similarly, the results showed that the experimental group participants had significantly higher attitude scores than the control group across the time periods. Further analysis revealed that those who experienced the LAP developed more positive attitudes over the six month period, however, this was not maintained consistently at each time point. In the analysis of confidence scores across time, participants in the experimental group were no different to those in the control group. However, confidence was shown to be significantly higher in experimental group participants six months following the intervention. Overall, the results of the study were very positive in support of the Lactation Adviser Program as an effective initiative to increase knowledge and confidence and enhance positive attitudes of participants, in the long term, in regard to breastfeeding management. (author abstract

Knowledge and attitudes of secondary school students to breastfeeding

Research has indicated that adolescents had both negative and positive attitudes and have common misconceptions regarding breastfeeding that appear to result from their limited knowledge and reduced exposure to breastfeeding. The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitudes towards breastfeeding of adolscent rural and metropolitian secondary school students. A survey of a purposeful sample of 1845 male and female students was carried out. The study results indicated that, overall, Western Australian adolescent secondary school students have less than ideal knowledge of breastfeeding that is consistent with findings from other studies. Female students were found to be more positive towards breastfeeding than male students. The comparision of rural to metropolitian students found that metropolitian students had higher breastfeeding knowledge and were more positive towards breastfeeding than rural students. The study suggests that breastfeeding and lactation information needs to be addressed earlier than adolescence in order to increase breastfeeding knowledge and promote positive attitudes