International journal of nursing studies
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Comparative Study
The quality of intensive care unit nurse handover related to end of life: a descriptive comparative international study.
Quality ICU end-of-life-care has been found to be related to good communication. Handover is one form of communication that can be problematic due to lost or omitted information. A first step in improving care is to measure and describe it. ⋯ Practices of end-of-life-handover communication vary greatly between units. However, room for improvement exists in all areas in all of the units studied. The total score was higher when quality of care might be deemed at greater risk (if the nurses did not know the patient or the patient was expected to die), indicating that nurses were exercising some form of discretionary decision making around handover communication; thus validating the measurement tool.
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Understanding minority nurses' job satisfaction is a critical first step to inform strategies designed to retain minority nurses and improve institutional climate to ensure sustained diversity. Yet, empirical evidence is limited in this regard, especially comparisons across racial and ethnic groups in a national sample in the U.S. ⋯ Moderate differences in job satisfaction were observed across racial and ethnic groups. More research is needed to understand factors underlying these differences, so that nursing and hospital administrators can develop effective strategies to improve job satisfaction and retain minority nurses.