FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES
School of Nursing Science
Projects - RN4CAST:
International collaborative study. Multi-national comparison. The purpose of the RN4CAST project is to expand typical forecasting models with factors that take into account how features of work environments and qualifications of the nurse workforce impact on nurse retention, productivity and patient outcomes.
The objectives are:
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to explore and explain the relationship between nurse staffing, nurse practice environments and outcomes; |
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to establish data sets regarding patients in the hospital and their outcomes; and |
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to use the data of this project together with macro-economic data, to develop a model in determining the demand for nurses in South Africa to meet defined levels of patient care safety and quality. |
Research team members are based at Belgium Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, University of Kuopio, Finland, Technical University Berlin, Germany, University of Athens, Greece, City University, Ireland Dublin, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, The Institute of Health Carlos III, Spain, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, University of Basel, Switzerland, Kings College London, UK, University of Pennsylvania, USA, University of Botswana, Botswana, Union Medical College, Peking, China and North-West University, South Africa.
Members are: W Sermeus (PI), L Aiken (Co-PI), K van den Heeden (Project Management) Belgium: W Sermeus, E Lesaffre Greece: J Mantas, Sweden: C Tishelman, Botswana: S Shaibu, Ireland: A Scott, A Matthews, A Staines, Switzerland: S De Geest, M Schubert, R Schwendimann, China: H Liu, Y Liming, Poland: T Brzostek, M Cisek, The Netherlands: T. van Achterberg, L Schoonhoven, M Heinen, Finland: J Kinnunen, A Ensio, South Africa: HC Klopper, United Kingdom: A Rafferty, P Griffiths, S Jones, J Ball, R Blackwell, Germany: R Busse, M Blumel, B Zander, Spain: M Moreno-Casbas, USA: H Smith and J Cimiotti.
In South Africa, a National Nurse Survey is being conducted as part of the RN4Cast Consortium and Prof HC Klopper is the Principal Investigator, with Dr L Aiken as Co-PrincipaI Investigator and Mrs R Pretorius, Ms S Knobloch and Dr P Bester as collaborators.
The objectives are:
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to describe nurses involvement in direct patient care relating to their work conditions, work-related experiences and perceptions of quality of care; |
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to develop and validate a compassion fatigue scale, so as to determine the incidence of compassion fatigue in nursing staff; |
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to provide measures of key independent and dependent variables that can be analysed at the hospital level and linked to other data sources; and |
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to compare data between the three different African countries and determine if this can be used in influencing human resource national policy. |