The physical health of individuals with serious mental illness Josephine Bardi (RMN), MSc Public Health candidate Twitter @JoBardi01

“The problem of physical health in individuals with severe mental illness remains a global public health concern” (World Psychiatric Association, 2009, p.1). Individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) particularly those with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder are vulnerable to poorer physical health which results in higher rates of mortality and morbidity when compared to […]

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Back to square one? Pain management in children

Jackie Vasey, Senior Lecturer Children’s Nursing, University of Huddersfield Effective pain management is a human right and health professionals have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive effective pain management (Twycross & Williams, in; Twycross, Dowden & Stinson, 2014). However, evidence suggests that effective pain management is lacking, with children continuing to experience moderate […]

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Mental health – predicted to be the leading disease burden by 2030 – The role of the Commonwealth Nurses Federation

The 2nd Commonwealth Nurses Conference titled Nurses and midwives: agents of change, was held in March 2014 in London. Two hundred nurses from 26 countries attended the conference. The Commonwealth Nurses Federation (CNF) has several aims including contributing to the improved health by fostering access to nursing education, influencing health policy, developing nursing networks and strengthening […]

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Understanding study designs for nurses who ‘don’t do’ epidemiology

Nova Corcoran,  University of South Wales. It’s that word ‘epidemiology’. Possibly it makes people think another other unpleasant word – ‘statistics’. Usually it takes you back to being a nursing student again and those research methods lectures that were full of words like p-values and confidence intervals.  In practice, nurses (and other health care practitioners) […]

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