Aim To explore the ability of nurses to be adequately ready for and to respond to a disaster caused by a natural hazard. Background During a disaster involving a healthcare facility, nurses are commonly the largest group of healthcare workers impacted. The range of problems facing nurses working in healthcare facilities in Australia and New Zealand at the time of disasters triggered by earthquakes and bushfires have been underexamined. Methods A qualitative enquiry was used to explore matters facing nurses working in residential healthcare facilities during a natural disaster. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify the key themes from fifteen in‐depth interviews with nurses. Findings Participants preserved a robust sense of professional duty, personal obligation and responsibility to their family, patients and the facility, demonstrating the ability to adapt, cope and respond despite experiencing diverse personal, structural and organizational barriers. Discussion Support was provided for using interactive systems and socio‐ecological frameworks to better understand the contributions that individuals, teams and organizations make to facilitate the development and maintenance of adaptive capacity and resilience in a nursing workforce. An ecological model of adaptive capacity can be operationalized to guide education, training for nurses and the development of organizational systems and strategies. Conclusion This study identified factors that help and hinder a nursing workforce’s ability to prepared for, adapt to and learn from natural hazard disasters. Implications for Nursing Policy This understanding of disaster preparedness and how this may be applied to enable the growth of adaptive nurses provides an insight for a global audience which also adds to nurse education, service delivery, organizational and policy development.

INTRODUCTION: A Continuity of Cancer Care pilot project was established in two urban general practices, with the goal of improving cancer care and patient access to services. Practice nurses were engaged as coordinators to implement a model of care and patient navigation to offer continued and consistent care, and to assist the patient to navigate their cancer experience. AIM: The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Continuity of Cancer Care pilot project. METHODS: Patients enrolled in the pilot project were invited to participate. Each participant completed a Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and SF-12 Health Survey, and was then invited to take part in an interview. The evaluation framework utilised concepts of informational, management and relational continuity. RESULTS: The SF-12 subcategories of physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain and role emotional were lower than other results from cancer patients in the literature. The Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and interviews indicated patients were satisfied with the relational continuity components of the project, but that gaps existed within the management and informational continuity aspects of care. DISCUSSION: Overall, the participants were satisfied with the Continuity of Cancer Care programme and valued the support, clarification and listening aspects of the programme. However, when evaluated in relation to a more comprehensive definition of continuity of care, there were distinct gaps. While the relational aspects of continuity of care were mostly achieved, the management and informational aspects appeared to be limited primarily to nurses acting to interpret hospital and general practitioner comments for patients. KEYWORDS: Cancer; continuity of patient care; general practice; nurses; nursing evaluation research; primary health care

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Article BackgroundNo country is truly exempt from a disaster. History has already provided examples of what can happen to a community in the event of a large-scale natural disaster. Factors such as population growth and urban development are increasing the risk faced by populations worldwide. Climate change will increase the incidence, duration, and severity of hazards of meteorological origin. The risk of disaster and thus the human consequences is increasing. When disaster strikes, health care organizations, and particularly their nursing and medical staff, are a critical element in any disaster response. They provide an essential service to any community, and hospitals and emergency departments (EDs) are often the first place of call for people affected by any type of emergency. The nursing workforce makes up a large part of any health care facility and organization, and is expected to be able to adapt and function competently. In addition, nurses may have to adapt at a moment's notice to events that occur with little or no warning, and they may be called upon to function effectively in challenging circumstances for periods of weeks or months and in contexts where their own community has been affected. The nature, extent, and speed of recovery in areas impacted by adverse events such as natural disasters is thus influenced by the adaptive capacity and resilience of nurses and the health care organizations they represent.The aim of the integrative review was to provide an evidence-based approach and re-conceptualization of ideas and recommendations for natural disaster preparation, preparedness, and competencies for nurses using an ecological 655587S GOXXX10.1177/2158244016655587SAGE OpenScrymgeour et al. AbstractNurses are pivotal to an effective societal response to a range of critical events, including disasters. This presents nurses with many significant and complex challenges that require them to function effectively under highly challenging and stressful circumstances and often for prolonged periods of time. The exponential growth in the number of disasters means that knowledge of disaster preparedness and how this knowledge can be implemented to facilitate the development of resilient and adaptive nurses and health care organizations represents an important adjunct to nurse education, policy development, and research considerations. Although this topic has and continues to attract attention in the literature, a lack of systematic understanding of the contingencies makes it difficult to clearly differentiate what is known and what gaps remain in this literature. Providing a sound footing for future research c...

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The purpose of this exploratory descriptive mixed-method study was to explore the potential role of the nurse endoscopist as a part of the solution in fulfilling the workforce requirements of a bowel screening program, ascertain the possible enablers of a nurse endoscopist role in New Zealand, and determine whether there are endoscopy nurses who would wish to follow the nurse endoscopist/nurse practitioner pathway. A questionnaire with both open- and closed-ended questions gained in-depth information regarding the aspirations of New Zealand endoscopy nurses, their perceived enablers and barriers of a nurse endoscopist role, and statistical information on the New Zealand endoscopy nursing workforce. New Zealand has a highly experienced and educated endoscopy nursing workforce who supports the development of the nurse endoscopist role, some of whom expressed interest in a nurse endoscopist/practitioner pathway. It was concluded that with the addition of a specific education pathway and funding, standardization of training for endoscopists, and specific job description for nurse endoscopists, the future development of this role is possible in New Zealand.