List of Titles

Empowerment as an alternative to traditional patient advocacy roles

- Cole, Clare, Mummery, Jane, Peck, Blake

Authors: Cole, Clare , Mummery, Jane , Peck, Blake
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Nursing Ethics Vol. 29, no. 7-8 (2022), p. 1553-1561
Full Text: false
Reviewed:
Description: There has long been acceptance within healthcare that one of the roles that nurses fulfil is to do with patient advocacy. This has historically been positioned as part of the philosophical and inherent requirements of the nursing profession at large and is supported through shared conceptualisations of the nursing profession. Such conceptualisations are communicated to nursing professionals by way of first their education, and second their professional codes, guidelines and standards for practice. The focus on advocacy is further embedded within patient-centred care frameworks and concepts of the nurse–patient therapeutic relationship. Nurses have also been considered ideally placed to undertake the work of patient advocacy due to the 24/7 nature and intimacy of the care provided. What this means is that nurses are under the impression that that they must be an advocate for their patients through their nursing practice. However, for a fundamental concept of nursing, advocacy is poorly defined, and practices commonly associated with advocacy are undercut by the professionalisation of nursing and other constraints. In addition, nursing standards and frameworks of care are being actively reframed around ideas of empowerment which do not necessarily fit well with those of advocacy. This article thus suggests that it is time to recognise that the work of advocacy is no longer representative of what nurses (can) do in practice, and to explicitly reorient conceptualisations of nurse practice around empowerment. This article will further analyse what this may look like in practice. © The Author(s) 2022.

Problematising autonomy and advocacy in nursing

- Cole, Clare, Wellard, Sally, Mummery, Jane

Authors: Cole, Clare , Wellard, Sally , Mummery, Jane
Date: 2014
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Nursing Ethics Vol. 21, no. 5 (2014), p. 576-582
Full Text: false
Reviewed:
Description: Customarily patient advocacy is argued to be an essential part of nursing, and this is reinforced in contemporary nursing codes of conduct, as well as codes of ethics and competency standards governing practice. However, the role of the nurse as an advocate is not clearly understood. Autonomy is a key concept in understanding advocacy, but traditional views of individual autonomy can be argued as being outdated and misguided in nursing. Instead, the feminist perspective of relational autonomy is arguably more relevant within the context of advocacy and nurses' work in clinical healthcare settings. This article serves to highlight and problematise some of the assumptions and influences around the perceived role of the nurse as an advocate for patients in contemporary Western healthcare systems by focusing on key assumptions concerning autonomy inherent in the role of the advocate. © The Author(s) 2014.

Independent mental health advocacy : a model of social work advocacy?

- Maylea, Christopher, Makregiorgos, Helen, Martin, Jennifer, Alvarez-Vasquez, Susan, Dale, Matthew, Hill, Nicholas, Johnson, Brendan, Thomas, Stuart, Weller, Penelope

Authors: Maylea, Christopher , Makregiorgos, Helen , Martin, Jennifer , Alvarez-Vasquez, Susan , Dale, Matthew , Hill, Nicholas , Johnson, Brendan , Thomas, Stuart , Weller, Penelope
Date: 2020
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Australian Social Work Vol. 73, no. 3 (2020), p. 334-346
Full Text: false
Reviewed:
Description: Advocacy has received less attention in social work research than other aspects of social work practice. This paper draws attention to two tensions in social work advocacy; between worker-led advocacy and person-led advocacy, and between individual advocacy and system level advocacy. We argue that human-rights-based social workers must choose a person-led approach over a worker-led approach while advocating with both systems and individuals. This argument is made by drawing on findings of an evaluation of Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) in Victoria, Australia. It is shown that social work training had not prepared social workers for rights-based, person-led advocacy and that social workers in public mental health services were struggling to maintain the rights of people in their services even with assistance from IMHA. IMPLICATIONS Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) is a model of advocacy influenced by social work theory and delivered in part by social-work-trained advocates. Social work training is not preparing social workers for person-led, human-rights-based advocacy. Public mental health social workers are struggling to maintain the rights of people in mental health services even with the support of external advocacy services. © 2020, © 2020 Australian Association of Social Workers.

Strengthen and protect nurses well-being

- Willetts, Georgina, Ward, Kylie

Authors: Willetts, Georgina , Ward, Kylie
Date: 2023
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Global Applications to Advance Health Equity p. 39-54
Full Text: false
Reviewed:
Description: Incivility, discrimination, and the pandemic are hefty burdens that have created a tipping point for nurses and contributed to role-fatigue, depression, and suicide. The inability to obtain well-being impacts the availability of nurses who are positioned to serve in their fullest capacity and persist in nursing. Incivility can cripple the capacity of nurses to ready themselves for their role and overcome the challenges that plague healthcare systems. Efforts to strengthen the health and well-being of nurses must be underscored by systemic change, rather than placing the burden on the individual nurse. How governments and institutions fully engage in efforts to support nurse well-being should be illuminated. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Showing items 1 - 4 of 4