Unprofessional conduct by nurses: A document analysis of disciplinary decisions

Background: A small minority of nurses are investigated when they fail to meet the required professional standards. Unprofessional conduct does not just affect the nurse but also patients, colleagues and managers. However, it has not been clearly defined.Objective: The objective was to identify unprofessional conduct by registered nurses by examining disciplinary decisions by a national regulator.Design: A retrospective document analysis.Data and research context: Disciplinary decisions delivered to 204 registered nurses by the Finnish national regulatory authority from 2007 to 2016. The data were analysed with quantitative statistics.Ethical consideration: The study received permission from the Finnish National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health and used confidential documents that were supplied on the basis of complete anonymity and confidentiality.Findings: The mean age of the registered nurses who were disciplined was 44 years and 81% were female. Two-thirds had worked for their employer for 5 years or less, 53% had two or more employers and 18% had a criminal history. All the decisions included a primary reason for why the nurses were investigated, but there were also 479 coexisting reasons. In most cases, unprofessional conduct was connected to substance abuse (96%). In addition, stealing of medicine, a decreased ability to work and neglect of nursing guidelines were reported.Discussion: We found that the nurses were investigated for unprofessional conduct for complex combinations of primary and coexisting reasons. Our study highlighted that more attention needs to be paid to the key markers for unprofessional conduct.Conclusion: Unprofessional conduct is a complex phenomenon that is connected to nurses' individual and working backgrounds and has an impact on their work performance. More research is needed to identify how nursing communities can detect, manage and limit the serious effects and consequences of unprofessional conduct.</p

Disciplinary processes for nurses, from organizational supervision to outcomes: A document analysis of a regulatory authority's decisions

Aim: This study aims to explore the disciplinary processes for nurses, from organizational supervision to final decisions by the Finnish regulatory authority.Background: Regulatory authorities are responsible for protecting the public, by ensuring that they receive safe, competent and ethical nursing care, but little is known about the disciplinary processes for nurses.Methods: This is a retrospective document analysis of 296 disciplinary decisions by the Finnish regulatory authority from 2007 to 2016. The data were analysed using a quantitative design with descriptive statistics.Results: We studied 204 disciplined nurses (81.4% female) with a mean age of 43.5 years. The disciplinary process comprised organizational supervision, complaints, investigations and decisions. Nurses with substance abuse issues were more likely to face criminal investigations and receive temporary decisions. The process lasted from under 1 month to years and could have profound effects on nurses, col-leagues and nurse managers and compromise patient safety.Conclusion: This study identified key factors that could inform the disciplinary processes for nurses. More knowledge is needed about how organisations ensure patient safety when unprofessional conduct is suspected.Implications for Nursing Management: Retaining nursing professionals is vital due to global shortages, and more attention should be paid to organizational supervision and support for nurses during disciplinary processes.</p

Integrative review of studies about nurses who have been disciplined by their professional regulatory bodies

Aim To synthesize knowledge in studies about nurses who had been disciplined by their professional regulatory bodies. Background Unprofessional conduct that violates patient safety, nursing standards or legislation can result in disciplinary action that affects nurse's professional rights to practice. However, research on disciplinary procedures in nursing is fragmented. Methods An integrative review was carried out with systematic searches between January 2006 and November 2018, using the CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases and manual searches. The quality of the 17 included studies was evaluated with the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool. Results The evidence in the included studies focused on various databases. Disciplined nurses were described in relation to their characteristics and disciplined because of numerous patients, practice and behaviour related violations. Similar disciplinary actions against nurses were reported. Conclusion This review provides knowledge on contributory risk factors that can be used to develop professional standards and early interventions in nursing management. More systematic research is needed, together with clear definitions of disciplinary procedures. Implication for Nursing Management This knowledge could strengthen the abilities of nurse managers to recognize and prevent events that seldom occur but seriously threaten the safety of patients and nurses when they do

Developing a Feasible and Credible Method for Analyzing Healthcare Documents as Written Data

Healthcare provides a rich, and constantly increasing, number of written documents, which are underutilized in research data for health and nursing sciences, but previous literature has only provided limited guidance on the process of document analysis. The aim of this paper is to provide a methodological framework for analyzing health care documents as written data, based on a systematic methodological review and the research team's experience of the method. Based on the results, the methods consist of seven phases: (i) identify the purpose, (ii) determine the document selection strategy, (iii) select or design an extraction matrix, (iv) carry out pilot testing, (v) collect and analyze the data, (vi) consider the credibility, and (vii) ethics of the study. The framework that has been developed can be used to carry out document analysis studies that are both feasible and credible

Suomen Syöpäsairaanhoitajat osana eurooppalaista syöpäsairaanhoitajien yhteisöä

Suomen syöpäsairaanhoitajat yhdistyksen (SSSH ry) kautta suomalaiset syöpäsairaanhoitajat kuuluvat Euroopan syöpäsairaanhoitajien yhdistykseen (European Oncology Nursing Society EONS) ja sitä kautta sen tarjoamat mahdollisuudet syöpää sairastavan hoitotyön ammatillisen osaamisen kehittämiseen ovat toivottavasti ainakin osin tuttuja jo jäsenillemme. EONS on noin 28 000 sairaanhoitajan yhteisö, johon kuuluu jäsenjärjestöjä Euroopan mantereen eri maista. EONS:siin on mahdollista kuulua myös yksilöjäsenenä, mutta yleisempi tapa on kuulua siihen kansallisen yhdistyksen kautta. Tässä artikkelissa kuvaamme kokemuksiamme kansainvälisestä yhteistyöstä ja millaisia mahdollisuuksia se avaa jäsenille