Assessing the FACTS: A Mnemonic for Teaching and Learning the Rapid Assessment of Rigor in Qualitative Research Studies

Teaching and learning research appraisal strategies is a challenge in undergraduate education and for practitioners alike. The appraisal of rigor in qualitative research papers is particularly complex and sophisticated work for many undergraduate research students and practitioners who want to develop their critical reading skills. The mnemonic strategy (The FACTS) explained in this paper is one pedagogical strategy for establishing a simplified approach to teaching and learning the appraisal of rigor in qualitative research. While not a comprehensive tool, the FACTS are a useful introduction to the complex challenge of qualitative research appraisal

Exiting Homelessness, The Perspectives of Those Experiencing Housing Instability

Background: For nearly thirty years homelessness has increased steadily in major cities around the globe, including Alberta Canada. Strategies adopted by the Canadian and Alberta governments to manage homelessness has yielded limited success. Signaling that Individuals experiencing homelessness are yet to be included adequately in search of solutions. Comprehension of homelessness phenomenon remains a challenge, as well as ending homelessness. The purpose of this phenomenological investigation study was to understand homelessness phenomenon from the experience of people who do not have homes and are experiencing housing instability. Methods: A total of 15 respondents were recruited.  We performed in-depth, open-ended interviews for data collection. Following hermeneutic and phenomenological principles, interview data was retrieved, transcribed, summarized, described, and explained. Results: The prominent themes indicated a need to make housing, and utilities affordable, and rent and mortgage qualification criteria easy; a need for revising of credit bureau and criminal record policies; people at the shelters entitled to welfare or other benefits requires grace period of at least three months before withholding payment of their entitlements; vital skills training is necessary to secure a job, for financial management, for positive behaviour, and supervised spending. Shelter awareness is necessary, and making government support services efficient, and non-discriminatory. End all discriminations and provide 40hrs/week regular full-time jobs. Conclusion: The homeless, public, public health, and homeless service providers would benefit from the findings. Findings could help to stir homelessness reduction strategies to keep people out of the street in Canada

Using Grounded Theory as a Method of Inquiry: Advantages and Disadvantages

There are many challenges and criticisms attached to the conduct of research, none the least of which is a notion that much of the research undertaken in professional disciplines such as nursing may not have clinical and/or practical relevance. While there are a plethora of qualitative research methods that individuals must consider when designing research studies, one method stands out - Grounded Theory (GT). Grounded theory was developed in the early 1960’s by Glaser and Strauss. With its theoretical orientation based in sociology, GT strives to understand and explain human behavior through inductive reasoning processes (Elliott & Lazenbatt, 2005). Because of its emphasis on the utilization of a variety of data sources that are grounded in particular contexts, GT provides a natural theoretical fit when designing nursing research studies. In this article, the authors provide an overview of GT and then describe the appropriateness, advantages, and disadvantages of applying it as part of the research design process. Additionally, the authors highlight the importance of taking a reflexive position to stay engaged while interacting with the data, and explore how to apply GT theory to particular research questions and studies. Finally, the strengths and limitations of this method of inquiry as applied to nursing research using a brief case study approach is presented

“You Want Me to Come to Your Office?!”: Student experiences of Moving from Failure to Success in a Nursing Course

The experiences of undergraduate nursing students facing and overcoming failure in their coursework must be understood in order for nurse educators to effectively engage and provide supportive strategies to their students. A student-centred learning perspective and interpretive phenomenological approach to research frames this study of ten students’ accounts of their experiences from failure to success in a second year nursing course. Central themes include: Feeling Uncomfortable, Finding Confidence, and Cultivating a New Identity. Seeking feedback and building study habits and central to the students\u27 pursuit of confidence and new identity formation. Implications for nurse educators’ proactive engagement with students identified as being ‘at risk’ are discussed and strategies proposed. Individualized, student-centred, and focused feedback forged from trusted student-instructor relationships appear to be central strategies to assist the transition between failure and success. Résumé La compréhension des expériences des étudiants en sciences infirmières de premier cycle qui ont été confrontées à un échec dans un cours et qui l’ont surmonté permettrait aux infirmières enseignantes de soutenir efficacement et de fournir des stratégies d’apprentissage à leurs étudiantes. Développée selon une perspective d’apprentissage centrée sur l’étudiante et menée grâce à une approche de recherche phénoménologique interprétative, cette étude porte sur le récit de dix étudiantes de deuxième année en sciences infirmières de leurs expériences d’échec puis de réussite d’un cours. Les thèmes centraux suivants ont été identifiés: se sentir mal à l\u27aise, trouver la confiance en soi et cultiver une nouvelle identité. Chercher à obtenir de la rétroaction et construire des habitudes d’études sont au cœur de la quête des étudiantes d’une confiance en soi et d’une formation d’une nouvelle identité. Les implications pour un engagement proactif des infirmières enseignantes auprès des étudiantes considérées comme étant « à risque » sont discutées et des stratégies sont proposées. Basée sur la relation de confiance entre l’étudiante et l’enseignante, la rétroaction ciblée, personnalisée et centrée sur l’étudiante est au cœur des stratégies essentielles pour faciliter la transition entre l’échec et la réussite

The Relative Importance of Academic Activities: Autonomous Values from the Canadian Professoriate

In this paper, we report findings on the contemporary idea of a university as defined by the relative importance of teaching, research, service, and collegiality in teaching-intensive universities. We also investigate Boyer’s model of scholarship relative to the research–teaching–service nexus. Our findings show that while research is embraced as a key academic responsibility of professors, there is general agreement on the primacy of teaching. Equally, awareness of Boyer’s model exposes faculty to diverse opportunities for scholarship and has the potential to open up faculty members to a new idea of the university.  Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats d’une recherche portant sur l’idée contemporaine de l’université, telle que définie par l’importance relative de l’enseignement, de la recherche, du service et de la collégialité dans des établissements d’enseignement intensif de niveau collégial ou universitaire. Notre recherche porte également sur le modèle boursier de Boyer, relatif au lien entre recherche, enseignement et service. Nos résultats démontrent que tandis qu’on voit la recherche comme une responsabilité académique des professeurs, il existe une entente générale quant à l’importance de l’enseignement. De même, le fait de connaître le modèle de Boyer, ouvre aux facultés d’enseignement la porte aux diverses opportunités d’obtention de bourses, et amène aussi à sensibiliser le personnel à une nouvelle pensée universitaire

The Association between Occupational Burnout and Spiritual Wellbeing in Emergency Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: This study evaluated the occupational burnout (OB) and spiritual well-being (SWB) of emergencynurses as well as the associations between these variables.Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in six hospitals and emergency medical centers affiliated withArdebil University of Medical Sciences (Ardebil, Iran), in 2020. Data were collected via socio-demographic,Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaires.Results: This study included 239 emergency department nurses. The mean age of the participants was 34.4±6.4years. The mean of existential well-being and religious well-being was 40.3±8.7 and 41.0±9.2, respectively. Theresults indicated that moderate (P=0.007) and severe (P<0.001) personal accomplishment was a positive andsignificant predictor of the SWB in emergency department nurses.Conclusion: Proper planning and provision of suitable educational programs in the dimension of the SWBof nurses prevent the creation and continuation of OB and increase the self-efficacy and job satisfaction ofemergency medical staff, resulting in better patient care

Generality of shear thickening in suspensions

Suspensions are of wide interest and form the basis for many smart fluids. For most suspensions, the viscosity decreases with increasing shear rate, i.e. they shear thin. Few are reported to do the opposite, i.e. shear thicken, despite the longstanding expectation that shear thickening is a generic type of suspension behavior. Here we resolve this apparent contradiction. We demonstrate that shear thickening can be masked by a yield stress and can be recovered when the yield stress is decreased below a threshold. We show the generality of this argument and quantify the threshold in rheology experiments where we control yield stresses arising from a variety of sources, such as attractions from particle surface interactions, induced dipoles from applied electric and magnetic fields, as well as confinement of hard particles at high packing fractions. These findings open up possibilities for the design of smart suspensions that combine shear thickening with electro- or magnetorheological response.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Nature Material

Safety, immunogenicity, and reactogenicity of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccines given as fourth-dose boosters following two doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or BNT162b2 and a third dose of BNT162b2 (COV-BOOST): a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised trial

Background Some high-income countries have deployed fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines, but the clinical need, effectiveness, timing, and dose of a fourth dose remain uncertain. We aimed to investigate the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of fourth-dose boosters against COVID-19.Methods The COV-BOOST trial is a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised controlled trial of seven COVID-19 vaccines given as third-dose boosters at 18 sites in the UK. This sub-study enrolled participants who had received BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) as their third dose in COV-BOOST and randomly assigned them (1:1) to receive a fourth dose of either BNT162b2 (30 µg in 0·30 mL; full dose) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna; 50 µg in 0·25 mL; half dose) via intramuscular injection into the upper arm. The computer-generated randomisation list was created by the study statisticians with random block sizes of two or four. Participants and all study staff not delivering the vaccines were masked to treatment allocation. The coprimary outcomes were safety and reactogenicity, and immunogenicity (antispike protein IgG titres by ELISA and cellular immune response by ELISpot). We compared immunogenicity at 28 days after the third dose versus 14 days after the fourth dose and at day 0 versus day 14 relative to the fourth dose. Safety and reactogenicity were assessed in the per-protocol population, which comprised all participants who received a fourth-dose booster regardless of their SARS-CoV-2 serostatus. Immunogenicity was primarily analysed in a modified intention-to-treat population comprising seronegative participants who had received a fourth-dose booster and had available endpoint data. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, 73765130, and is ongoing.Findings Between Jan 11 and Jan 25, 2022, 166 participants were screened, randomly assigned, and received either full-dose BNT162b2 (n=83) or half-dose mRNA-1273 (n=83) as a fourth dose. The median age of these participants was 70·1 years (IQR 51·6–77·5) and 86 (52%) of 166 participants were female and 80 (48%) were male. The median interval between the third and fourth doses was 208·5 days (IQR 203·3–214·8). Pain was the most common local solicited adverse event and fatigue was the most common systemic solicited adverse event after BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 booster doses. None of three serious adverse events reported after a fourth dose with BNT162b2 were related to the study vaccine. In the BNT162b2 group, geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration at day 28 after the third dose was 23 325 ELISA laboratory units (ELU)/mL (95% CI 20 030–27 162), which increased to 37 460 ELU/mL (31 996–43 857) at day 14 after the fourth dose, representing a significant fold change (geometric mean 1·59, 95% CI 1·41–1·78). There was a significant increase in geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration from 28 days after the third dose (25 317 ELU/mL, 95% CI 20 996–30 528) to 14 days after a fourth dose of mRNA-1273 (54 936 ELU/mL, 46 826–64 452), with a geometric mean fold change of 2·19 (1·90–2·52). The fold changes in anti-spike protein IgG titres from before (day 0) to after (day 14) the fourth dose were 12·19 (95% CI 10·37–14·32) and 15·90 (12·92–19·58) in the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 groups, respectively. T-cell responses were also boosted after the fourth dose (eg, the fold changes for the wild-type variant from before to after the fourth dose were 7·32 [95% CI 3·24–16·54] in the BNT162b2 group and 6·22 [3·90–9·92] in the mRNA-1273 group).Interpretation Fourth-dose COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccines are well tolerated and boost cellular and humoral immunity. Peak responses after the fourth dose were similar to, and possibly better than, peak responses after the third dose