Hospice Nurses' Journal Club

The Hospice Nurses’ Journal Club is an opportunity for our nursing team to update their skills in reading a journal article with a critical eye. Through developing this skill, we hope nurses will be able to integrate research into their work area and feel motivated to try out new concepts, or come up with ideas that they would like develop themselves. This is linked to our strategic goal to ‘Share, learn & educate’ and will ultimately improve the care that we can give to our patients, their families and their carers.

 

The club was designed and created by Nurse Consultant, Diane Corrin, along with support from the Scholl Academic Centre with the aim of creating a safe environment where nurses, healthcare assistants and researchers can explore and discuss ideas, methods and research. It aims to build on existing knowledge and understanding of research and improve staff confidence when reading, critiquing and conducting research.

 

The first of these meetings was successfully held on Thursday 13th September 2018 where presentations were delivered by the research team to welcome the club members and introduce concepts to critique journal articles. This was followed by a presentation from our own Dr. Hollie Quaye, a clinical psychologist at Hospice Isle of Man, where she discussed her research study, which is due to be published in the Journal of Mental Health. The research methods and findings were discussed as a group, which inspired further research questions and topics from the study.

 

Overall, the first Journal Club meeting was very successful. Feedback received from members was positive, and all who attended stated that they would recommend the Journal Club to colleagues. One member commented:

 

“It’s nice to have time to focus on research in our workplace. Also to meet the research team and for their experience to be shared”

 

Whilst another stated that there was lots of new information to reflect on. Members also offered suggestions and recommendations for future meeting topics.

 

The Journal Club will be evaluated by the research team through feedback forms and an online survey. The online survey was released four weeks prior to the first meeting and aimed to gain understanding of the knowledge and confidence of staff towards research and critiquing journal articles. The findings from the first survey were positive, revealing a good level of knowledge among staff already. Of the 22 nurses and healthcare assistants who completed the survey, 19 felt comfortable reading a journal article and 16 felt comfortable critiquing a journal article. Six respondents had already conducted a research study within their nursing role and 8 stated that they were interested in conducting research in their field. This initial survey will form as a benchmark, where it will be repeated every 6 months. Future survey responses will hopefully reveal a gradual improvement in member’s skills and confidence surrounding research.

 

It is hoped the club will help develop stronger relationships between researchers and nursing staff, where they will be able to learn from each other. With time, we hope to integrate research into practice, encouraging staff to further their knowledge or even undertake their own research projects.