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Research to support evidence-informed decisions on optimizing the contributions of nursing and midwifery workforces

Filippino nurse with pregnant woman (Flickr, timefornurses)The WHO designated the year 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife”, to commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. Nightingale was an early proponent of the use of statistical analysis to inform professional practice and health policy. In celebration and recognition of this, our thematic series in Human Resources for Health focuses on research and analysis that contributes to improved policy, planning and implementation related to nursing and midwifery workforces, and provides new evidence on the impact and contribution of nurses and midwives.

The series aims to inform and support policy makers in countries at all levels of development who are striving to achieve and sustain the maximum contribution from often scarce nursing  and midwifery resources. It also aims to contribute to the growing evidence base on the roles and impact of nurses and midwives in achieving global development goals.

This series has now closed to new submissions. 

In this thematic series, we are particularly interested to receive manuscripts which contribute to the evidence base on nurses and midwives education, roles, recruitment and retention, or which focus on evaluating their impact and “value” to patient outcomes, costs and health system effectiveness. Manuscripts should be nationally or internationally policy relevant, and where appropriate should examine nurses and midwives within the context of the broader health workforce, and health labour market.  Given that the two professions being examined are mainly comprised of women, we welcome papers that focus on gender as a component to analysis and evaluation; we also encourage papers that provide evidence based recommendations for policy that are scaleable at national or international level.

This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process. The Editors declare no competing interests.

  1. The annual recruitment of new graduate nurses and midwives is key to recruiting large numbers of staff with the right attitude, skills and knowledge who are the best fit for the organisation. Virtual interview...

    Authors: Doreen Holm, Se Ok Ohr and Michelle Giles
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:121
  2. The Western Pacific region constitutes one-quarter of the world’s population and has diverse health needs. While dialogue on and promotion of advanced practice nurses are ongoing, this study investigated the c...

    Authors: Sue Kim, Tae Wha Lee, Gwang Suk Kim, Eunhee Cho, Yeonsoo Jang, Mona Choi, Seoyoung Baek, David Lindsay, Sally Chan, Regina L. T. Lee, Aimin Guo, Frances Kam Yuet Wong, Doris Yu, Sek Ying Chair, Yoko Shimpuku, Sonoe Mashino…
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:19
  3. Globally, mobile learning (mLearning) tools have attracted considerable attention as a means of continuous training for healthcare workers. Rwanda like other low-resource settings with scarce in-service traini...

    Authors: Aurore Nishimwe, Latifat Ibisomi, Marc Nyssen and Daphney Nozizwe Conco
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:14
  4. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) health sector is undergoing rapid reform in line with the National Transformation Program, as part of Saudi’s vision for the future, Vision 2030. From a nursing human resour...

    Authors: Mohammed Alluhidan, Nabiha Tashkandi, Fahad Alblowi, Tagwa Omer, Taghred Alghaith, Hussah Alghodaier, Nahar Alazemi, Kate Tulenko, Christopher H. Herbst, Mariam M. Hamza and Mohammed G. Alghamdi
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:98
  5. Different social segments from several regions of the world face challenges in order to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Nursing represents the greatest number of health workforce in the globe...

    Authors: Isabel Amélia Costa Mendes, Carla Aparecida Arena Ventura, Ítalo Rodolfo Silva, Elucir Gir, Emerson Willian Santos de Almeida, Artur Acelino Francisco Luz Nunes Queiroz, Bruna Sordi Carrara, Raquel Helena Hernandez Fernandes, Tiago Privado da Silva and Álvaro Francisco Lopes de Sousa
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:86
  6. Most low- and middle-income countries are experiencing challenges in maternal health in relation to accessing skilled birth attendants (SBA). The first step in addressing this problem is understanding the curr...

    Authors: Amuda Baba, Tim Martineau, Sally Theobald, Paluku Sabuni and Joanna Raven
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:82
  7. Bangladesh did not have dedicated professional midwives in public sector health facilities until recently, when the country started a nation-wide programme to educate and deploy diploma midwives. The objective...

    Authors: Rashid U. Zaman, Adiba Khaled, Muhammod Abdus Sabur, Shahidul Islam, Shehlina Ahmed, Joe Varghese, Della Sherratt and Sophie Witter
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:73
  8. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has high maternal mortality and a low number of midwives, which undermines the achievement of goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, specifically th...

    Authors: Malin Bogren, Malin Grahn, Berthollet Bwira Kaboru and Marie Berg
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:65
  9. Despite the growing demand for community nurses, their number remains relatively low. We examined perceptions of final-year nursing students regarding their preferred work setting after graduation and the fact...

    Authors: Yael Sela, Keren Grinberg, Yair Shapiro and Rachel Nissanholtz-Gannot
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:53
  10. Mentoring programs for nurses already in the health workforce are growing in importance. Yet, the settings, goals, scale, and key features of these programs are not widely known.

    Authors: Jerilyn Hoover, Adam D. Koon, Erica N. Rosser and Krishna D. Rao
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:52
  11. The use of appropriate and relevant nurse-sensitive indicators provides an opportunity to demonstrate the unique contributions of nurses to patient outcomes. The aim of this work was to develop relevant metric...

    Authors: David Gathara, Mathias Zosi, George Serem, Jacinta Nzinga, Georgina A. V. Murphy, Debra Jackson, Sharon Brownie and Mike English
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:34
  12. Auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) play a pivotal role in provision of maternal and newborn health at primary level in India. Effective in-service training is crucial for upgrading their knowledge and skills for ...

    Authors: Shilpa Karvande, Vidula Purohit, Somasundari Somla Gopalakrishnan, B. Subha Sri, Matthews Mathai and Nerges Mistry
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:45
  13. In recent years, the role of a midwife has expanded to include the provision of abortion-related care. The laws on abortion in many European countries allow for those who hold a conscientious objection to part...

    Authors: Valerie Fleming, Clare Maxwell and Beate Ramsayer
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:42
  14. Workforce studies often identify burnout as a nursing ‘outcome’. Yet, burnout itself—what constitutes it, what factors contribute to its development, and what the wider consequences are for individuals, organi...

    Authors: Chiara Dall’Ora, Jane Ball, Maria Reinius and Peter Griffiths
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:41
  15. The complexity of nursing practice increases the risk of nurses suffering from mental health issues, such as substance use disorders, anxiety, burnout, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The...

    Authors: Christine L. Covell, Shamel Rolle Sands, Kenchera Ingraham, Melanie Lavoie-Tremblay, Sheri L. Price, Carol Reichert and Ivy L. Bourgeault
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:36
  16. The migration of Caribbean nurses, particularly to developed countries such as Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, remains a matter of concern for most countries of the region. With nursing vaca...

    Authors: Shamel Rolle Sands, Kenchera Ingraham and Bukola Oladunni Salami
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:19
  17. Following periods of health workforce crisis characterised by a severe shortage of nurses, midwives and doctors due to low production rates and excessive out-migration, the Government of Ghana through the Mini...

    Authors: James Avoka Asamani, Ninon P. Amertil, Hamza Ismaila, Francis Abande Akugri and Juliet Nabyonga-Orem
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:16
  18. Nurse prescribing of medicines is increasing worldwide, but there is limited research in Europe. The objective of this study was to analyse which countries in Europe have adopted laws on nurse prescribing.

    Authors: Claudia B. Maier
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:95
  19. Precarization of labor conditions has been expanding over the last three decades as a consequence of global economic transformations. The health workforce labor market is exposed to these transformations as we...

    Authors: Patricia Aristizabal, Gustavo Nigenda and Edson Serván-Mori
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:87