Introduction: Despite a growing recognition internationally that children have a right to participate in matters that affect their lives, they are not always involved in decision-making processes concerning their health care. There is a lack of information on how parents influence children’s participation in this decision making. This study explored the roles parents assume in processes regarding their children’s participation in communication exchanges and decision making in a paediatric oncology unit in Malaysia. Methods: This study adopted a focused ethnography design within a constructivist research paradigm. Participant observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 parents, 21 children and 19 nurses in a paediatric oncology unit in Malaysia. All observation fieldnotes and interview recordings were transcribed verbatim. A focused ethnographic data analysis technique was performed to analyse the data. Results: Three themes emerged regarding parents’ roles in the communication and decision-making processes involving their children: i) facilitators of communication; ii) communication brokers and iii) communication buffers. Conclusion: Parents controlled decision-making processes concerning their children, while children preferred and welcomed parents as consultants in the decision-making processes regarding their health care.

Background: Smartphone addiction has become a social problem in Malaysia as smartphone users increase drastically. Previous study revealed that smartphone addiction has a negative effect on the physical and psychosocial of a human being. Aims: This study aims to examine smartphone use and addiction among secondary school students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was employed involving 203 secondary school children at a secondary school in Malaysia. A set of a questionnaire consisting of two parts was used; (1) Part A: Sociodemographic, (2) Part B: Smartphone Addiction Scale in Malay version (SAS-M). Results: Finding from this study showed that there was a long duration of smartphones use was detected during the weekend with more than three hours per day and social media (81.8%) was the frequently visited function in the smartphones. These group of students were not addicted to smartphones, however, more than half of the students (57.6%) have a high risk of smartphones addiction. There is also a significant negative weak correlation between smartphone use and smartphone addiction during weekday and weekend with (p < 0.05; r2 -0.354, -0.360), respectively. Conclusion: This study provides insight into the use of smartphone and smartphone addiction in secondary school students from a Malaysian perspective.

Introduction: High-quality care renders patients to be fully informed and involved in the decision-making process. A literature review also reveals that the involvement of patients in healthcare has been associated with improved clinical outcomes. However, it rarely happens as several studies demonstrated that patient involvement in decision-making is lacking worldwide. Hence, health professionals, especially nurses, play an important role in patient involvement in decision-making as they are mostly engaged with patients during the care plan. This study aimed to assess the nurses’ perceptions and their role on patient involvement in nursing care decision-making. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at one of the university hospitals in Malaysia. About 105 nurses from 3 major departments (internal medicine, general surgery, and orthopaedic) were involved in this study. The data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. Results: The result showed that most of the nurses agree their patient involvement in decision-making relates to their encouragement to participate as well as having opportunity and enough information to participate. However, many of the nurses believe that they have to decide for their patients. Besides, a significant association between nurses’ years of service and their perception of patient’s involvement in decision-making (p = 0.01) was noted. Similarly, there is a significant association between the nurses’ department and their preferred role with p-value of 0.001 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study indicates the need to further improve nurses’ awareness of the importance and benefits of patient involvement in decisions related to their nursing care.

Introduction: Smartphone has become one of the basic needs for each person in daily life especially in health care setting. It acts as medium for the healthcare providers to communicate through e-mail, access information regarding the disease and drug information as well as managing their schedule. The adoption of smartphone had given the positive impact on nursing students in clinical learning experiences. However, as the number in utilizing it increases, it may expose the healthcare providers to risk of violation of patient privacy and confidentiality as well affecting their professionalism. Objectives: This study was aimed to examine the smartphone usage among undergraduate nursing students during clinical placement. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at one of the university in Malaysia. Purposive sampling method was used to select the sample and 202 participants were involved in this study. The data was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20. Result: The result showed that majority of the nursing students in this study (82.7%) have used smartphone during their work hours in clinical practice. They mainly used the smartphone for work-related purposes including searching for information on drugs, patients’ medical or health condition, patient care and patient education materials as well as communicating with their teammates. Yet, there were students who used smartphone for non-work-related activities such as online shopping, checking or posting status on social media and playing online games as well as communicating with friends and family.