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• Re: Workplace health and safety issues among community nurses: a study regarding the impact on providing care to rural consumers
  Thalia Aube
  Published on: 21 November 2016

• Published on: 21 November 2016

  Re: Workplace health and safety issues among community nurses: a study regarding the impact on providing care to rural consumers

  • Thalia Aube, MSc (Applied) - Nursing Candidate

  I write in reference to the article; Workplace health and safety issues among community nurses: a study regarding the impact on providing care to rural consumers, Terry D, Le Q Nguyen, et al, 2015. The objectives of this study were to identify key work place health and safety (WHS) issues that community nurses encounter, highlight the impact WHS issues play on nursing practice and provision of care and what strategies co...

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  I write in reference to the article; Workplace health and safety issues among community nurses: a study regarding the impact on providing care to rural consumers, Terry D, Le Q Nguyen, et al, 2015. The objectives of this study were to identify key work place health and safety (WHS) issues that community nurses encounter, highlight the impact WHS issues play on nursing practice and provision of care and what strategies community nurses develop and use to overcome the WHS issues in their practice. To achieve these objectives, the study uses a narrative inquiry underpinned by a phenomenological approach, with data and subsequent thematic analysis used from semi-structured interviews with 15 community nurses in rural and remote communities in Tasmania, Australia.

  The study is relevant and timely to the profession of nursing practice and adds to the knowledge base on this subject. Although the findings of the study are reflective of the current literature on remote area nursing, the study's similar findings can have important implications in the design of WHS strategies that can target both remote and rural community nurses. Understanding the nurses' perspectives on WHS issues can be important for the recruitment and retention of nurses in this field, as their needs and strategies to overcome obstacles were captured and presented to the readership. These lived experiences among the community nurses were also presented clearly through themes that emerged, with evidence in the form of quotations to support their findings and to offer a rich description of the phenomena. In particular, this study speaks to the supportive requirements or new solutions needed regarding information technology, transportation, workplace violence and unsafe home conditions. This could be particularly relevant for nursing in Canada, given our vast geographical landscape, including both rural areas and extremely remote areas, such as our Northern territories (Bushy, 2002).

  The author speaks to the concept of trustworthiness, including credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability in qualitative studies as being the standards for judging their rigor. As such, the author outlines strategies taken to increase the study's trustworthiness such as researcher triangulation, researcher reflective commentary and member checking. I feel that the findings could have been strengthened if the author offered more towards strategies to increase trustworthiness, particularly researcher reflexivity. In qualitative studies, researchers are the data collectors and the creators of the analytic process, therefore trustworthiness is enhanced when researchers report any personal or professional information that may have affected data collection and analysis, either negatively or positively (Polit, 2012). Although the author mentions the use of reflective commentary, perhaps greater commitment to a reflexive posture could have included sharing commentary excerpts or stating researcher presuppositions, biases and ongoing emotional reactions through the study (Polit, 2012). These clarifications can improve the credibility of the findings as it gives readers the ability to assess how these factors may have influenced researcher's observations and interpretations (Tong, 2007).

  References

  Bushy, A. (April 01, 2002). International perspectives on rural nursing: Australia, Canada, USA. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 10, 2, 104-111.

  Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

  Tong, A., Sainsbury, P., & Craig, J. (January 01, 2007). Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32- item checklist for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19, 6, 349-357.

  Conflict of Interest:

  None declared

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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