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While transition programs are widely used to facilitate newly graduated nurses transition to healthcare settings, knowledge about preconditions for implementing such programs in the hospital context is scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore program coordinators’ perspectives on implementing a transition program for newly graduated nurses.

An explorative qualitative study using individual interviews. Total of 11 program coordinators at five acute care hospital administrations in a south-west region in Sweden. Data was subjected to thematic analysis, using NVivo software to promote coding.

The following two themes were identified from the analysis: Create a shared responsibility for introducing newly graduated nurses, and establish legitimacy of the program. The implementation process was found to be a matter of both educational content and anchoring work in the hospital organization. To clarify the what and why of implementing a transition program, where the nurses learning processes are prioritized, was foundational prerequisites for successful implementation.

This paper illustrates that implementing transition programs in contemporary hospital care context is a valuable but complex process that involves conflicting priorities. A program that is well integrated in the organization, in which responsibilities between different levels and roles in the hospital organization, aims and expectations on the program are clarified, is important to achieve the intentions of effective transition to practice. Joint actions need to be taken by healthcare policymakers, hospitals and ward managers, and educational institutions to support the implementation of transition programs as a long-term strategy for nurses entering hospital care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on medical education and training, with many medical schools and training programs having to adapt to remote or online learning, social distancing measures and other challenges. This paper aimed to examine the disruption for clinical training, as it has reduced the opportunities for students and trainees to gain hands-on experience and interact with patients in person.

The ethnographic qualitative research design was chosen as the research methodology. Using Gibbs' reflective cycle, the researcher explored the psychiatry clerks' (final-year medical students) reflections on the disruption of their clinical training during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings demonstrated that the students had a significant psychological impact on their coping capacities as the crisis progressed from shock and depression to resilience. The students being the key stakeholders provided a concrete foundation for the development of a framework for improving practices during uncertain times.

Students' reflections provided valuable insight into the pandemic’s impact on their psychosocial lives with uncertainty and incapacity to cope up with changing stressful dynamics. The results will assist in planning how to best support medical students' well-being during interruptions of their educational process brought about by similar future crises.

This study aims to evaluate the participation and satisfaction of learners with the brief “Mental health promotion in school health care” e-learning course, and to describe factors related to their participation and satisfaction.

A convergent mixed-method study with a descriptive, posttest-only design was conducted in Finland. Quantitative data was collected from the learning portal data and via an electronic feedback questionnaire and qualitative data in four focus group discussions.

The three modules of the course were opened altogether 12,922 times during the 21 months period. The identified factors influencing participation within the course were: favorite methods attracting attention, the relevance of additional information and postprocessing boosting diligence. The learners’ satisfaction with the course was high. The factors identified for improving satisfaction were: filling gaps in earlier education, clear and concise structure and content, inspiring and interesting design and suitability for clinical use. In addition to the primary target group (school nurses), the course was well-participated and evaluated as satisfying among other health and social care professionals as well as undergraduate students.

This study demonstrates demand for brief, fully online mental health trainings among school nurses, but also among other health and social care professionals and students. The results indicate that learners perceive such training as beneficial. This paper also presents a novel training intervention and its pedagogical base.

This study aims to appraise and synthesize evidence examining the effects of toxic leadership on the nursing workforce and patient safety outcomes.

This is a systematic review in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. Five electronic databases (SCOPUS, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL and Psych INFO) were searched to identify relevant articles. Two independent researchers conducted the data extraction and appraisal. A content analysis was used to identify toxic leadership outcomes.

The initial literature search identified 376 articles, 16 of which were deemed relevant to the final review. Results of the content analysis identified 31 outcomes, which were clustered into five themes: satisfaction with work; relationship with organization; psychological state and well-being; productivity and performance; and patient safety outcomes. Seven mediators between toxic leadership and five outcomes were identified in the included studies.

Organizational strategies to improve outcomes in the nursing workforce should involve measures to build and develop positive leadership and prevent toxic behaviors among nurse managers through theory-driven strategies, human resource management efforts and relevant policy.

The review findings have provided modest evidence suggesting that working under a leader who exhibits toxic behaviors may have adverse consequences in the nursing workforce; however, more research examining if this leadership style influences patient safety and care outcomes is warranted.

Healthcare providers are under pressure due to increasing and more complex demands for services. Increased pressure on budgets and human resources adds to an ever-growing problem set. Competent leaders are in demand to ensure effective and well-performing healthcare organisations that deliver balanced results and high-quality services. Researchers have made significant efforts to identify and define determining competencies for healthcare leadership. Broad terms such as competence are, however, inherently at risk of becoming too generic to add analytical value. The purpose of this study is to suggest a holistic framework for understanding healthcare leadership competence, that can be crucial for operationalising important healthcare leadership competencies for researchers, decision-makers as well as practitioners.

In the present study, a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) was conducted to analyse competency descriptions for healthcare leaders. The descriptions were retrieved from peer reviewed empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022 that aimed to identify healthcare services leadership competencies. Grounded theory was utilised to code the data and inductively develop new categories of healthcare leadership competencies. The categorisation was then analysed to suggest a holistic framework for healthcare leadership competence.

Forty-one papers were included in the review. Coding and analysing the competence descriptions resulted in 12 healthcare leadership competence categories: (1) character, (2) interpersonal relations, (3) leadership, (4) professionalism, (5) soft HRM, (6) management, (7) organisational knowledge, (8) technology, (9) knowledge of the healthcare environment, (10) change and innovation, (11) knowledge transformation and (12) boundary spanning. Based on this result, a holistic framework for understanding and analysing healthcare services leadership competencies was suggested. This framework suggests that the 12 categories of healthcare leadership competencies include a range of knowledge, skills and abilities that can be understood across the dimension personal – and technical, and organisational internal and – external competencies.

This literature review was conducted with the results of searching only two electronic databases. Because of this, there is a chance that there exist empirical studies that could have added to the development of the competence categories or could have contradicted some of the descriptions used in this analysis that were assessed as quite harmonised. A CIS also opens for a broader search, including the grey literature, books, policy documents and so on, but this study was limited to peer-reviewed empirical studies. This limitation could also have affected the result, as complex phenomenon such as competence might have been disclosed in greater details in, for example, books.

The holistic framework for healthcare leadership competences offers a common understanding of a “fuzzy” concept such as competence and can be used to identify specific competency needs in healthcare organisations, to develop strategic competency plans and educational programmes for healthcare leaders.

This study reveals a lack of consensus regarding the use and understanding of the concept of competence, and that key competencies addressed in the included papers are described vastly different in terms of what knowledge, skills and abilities they entail. This challenges the operationalisation of healthcare services leadership competencies. The proposed framework for healthcare services leadership competencies offers a common understanding of work-related competencies and a possibility to analyse key leadership competencies based on a holistic framework.

The purpose of this study was to examine how well a strength-based program grounded in positive psychology principles can advance the practical critical thinking skills of those pursuing the teacher training course.

This study used a single-group pre-test post-test design with 35 teacher-trainees from the Bachelor of Education course. The two-and-a-half-week strength-based program used the values in action survey to identify strengths. Pre- and post-test scores, measured with the Cornell Critical Thinking Test – Level Z, underwent Statistical Package for Social Sciences analysis including paired samples t-test for subcomponent and overall composite analysis.

Analysis of the pre- and post-test scores demonstrated a statistical significance in the critical thinking scores obtained by the teacher-trainees. Post-test scores were consistently significant. Out of the elements of critical thinking, induction, meaning, observation and credibility were more prominent. Deduction and assumption identification were also having a significant effect.

Most critical thinking programs focus on evaluating specific teaching methods for improving critical thinking skills. In education, positive psychology studies often center on students’ well-being, attention spans and academic success, aligning with wellness programs. Despite the importance of strengths in positive psychology, there is a lack of research on using a strength-based approach to boost critical thinking skills. This study aims to enhance teacher-trainees’ critical thinking by leveraging their individual strengths, moving away from traditional instructional strategies.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented mental health repercussions in the lives of every individual including university students. Therefore, study on students’ psychological state and its associated factors during the pandemic are of importance. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

An online survey was done on a total of 207 university students of Pakistan to collect information on socio-demographic characteristics, concerns or fears amidst COVID-19 and mental distress. Validated tools; Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)-Depression were used to assess stress, anxiety and depression, respectively.

Around 14% of the university students were experiencing severe stress and anxiety, while 8.2% had severe depression. The authors found that stress among university students was related to psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 5.1: 1.1, 22.9) and unpredictability due to the pandemic (OR = 3.7: 1.2, 11.2). The significant determinants of anxiety were psychiatric illness/symptoms (OR = 6.6: 3.4, 12.9), implementation of public health measures (OR = 3.7: 1.1, 11.6), employed mothers (OR = 2.4: 1.1, 5.0) and lack of support from university administration (OR = 2.2: 1.0, 5.0). While the factors associated with depression included psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 8.4: 3.3, 21.5), unpredictability due to pandemic (OR = 6.8: 2.2, 20.7), impaired social support system (OR = 3.7: 1.3, 10.4) and studying without a scholarship (OR = 2.1: 1.0, 4.4).

These findings call for an urgent need to develop appropriate interventions and educational programs that could address the psychological needs of students.

The study directs the role of university and faculty in dealing the mental health needs of the student in COVID-19 pandemic time.

Educational programs are important that could address the psychological needs of students in COVID-19 pandemic.

University students reported mental distress during COVID-19 pandemic which shows that younger people are at risk of COVID-19 repercussions. Moreover, several stressors (i.e. impaired social support system and lack of support from universities) were revealed that could be mitigated by implementing appropriate strategies.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has challenged leadership in hospitals worldwide. The experiences of leadership during the pandemic changed leadership significantly. This study aims to describe nurse leaders’ perceptions of what future leadership in hospital settings in the post-pandemic era needs to be like.

A qualitative descriptive study was used. A total of 20 nurse leaders from the Finnish central hospital were interviewed from June to October 2021. The data were analysed using inductive content analysis.

The analysis revealed five main categories describing nurse leaders’ perceptions of future leadership in hospital settings in the post-pandemic era: digitalisation and hybrid working culture, development of sustainable working conditions, moving smoothly to the post-pandemic era, dissolution of traditional regimes of organisation and flexibility in leadership.

In the post-pandemic era, the constantly changing demands and challenges currently facing healthcare systems have significantly increased the complexity of hospital organisations. This requires critical evaluation and change to traditional leadership. Enhancing flexibility and authenticity in leadership, strengthening competencies, implementing a wide range of digital resources and increasing the appeal of the nursing profession to build the next generation of nurses – all of these are needed to provide sustainability in future healthcare.

The results identify the critical points of leadership that need to be developed for future challenges and for maintaining a sufficient supply of qualified professionals. Acting on this information will enhance flexibility in organisations and lead to acceleration of changes and the development of new kinds of leadership in the future

Higher educational institutions, such as universities of applied sciences, have a significant role in promoting progress towards a sustainable future as defined by the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper aims to identify how the UN SDGs are featured in master’s theses set in work–life contexts.

Using a descriptive review and content analysis, this study identified the number of SDGs appearing in 31 master’s theses. Sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility were reflected using the approaches and models in the literature. Finland’s eight objectives for committing to SD were used to examine the commitments made by the business school of the university of applied sciences to achieve Agenda 2030.

Emphasising the value of higher education for SD, this study found that SDGs three, eight and 12 appeared most frequently in the theses. Sustainable and responsible dimensions reflected several issues concerning both the worlds of business and industry among the firms and organisations investigated by the master’s degree students in the business school at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.

This research holds practical and pedagogical value, serving to encourage master’s and PhD students to further explore research on SDGs and to shape public policy.

Sustainability was looked at in a new way as investigated by the theses. Ways to integrate the SDGs into management degree programmes and conduct research in the fields of business administration, tourism and hospitality management were identified.

This study aims to examine how an educational intervention, using the lens of the LEADS framework, can influence the development of primary care doctors’ leadership skills in Aceh, Indonesia. In order to persevere in the face of inadequate resources and infrastructure, particularly in rural and remote settings of low- and middle‐income countries, physicians require strong leadership skills. However, there is a lack of information on leadership development in these settings.

This study applied an educational intervention consisting of a two-day workshop. The authors evaluated the impact of the workshop on participants’ knowledge and skill by combining quantitative pre- and post-intervention questionnaires (based on Levels 1 and 2 of Kirkpatrick’s model) with qualitative post-intervention in-depth interviews, using a phenomenological approach and thematic analysis.

The workshop yielded positive results, as evidenced by participants’ increased confidence to apply and use the information and skills acquired during the workshop. Critical success factors were as follows: participants were curiosity-driven; the use of multiple learning methodologies that attracted participants; and the use of authentic scenarios as a critical feature of the program.

The intervention may offer a preliminary model for improving physician leadership skills in rural and remote settings by incorporating multiple teaching approaches and considering local cultural norms.