Purpose: Newly qualified registered nurses often lack the competence to efficiently execute their professional roles and responsibilities. They might fail to execute their nursing functions and make clinical judgement because of lack of confidence. The aim of the study is to develop a conceptual framework as basis for the development of a transition support programme to facilitate the competencies of newly qualified registered nurses (NQRNs) at public hospitals in Namibia. Methods: The Programme Logic Model (Knowlton & Phillips, 2013 was adapted as it allowed the researcher to present the conceptual framework in a systematic and visual way, while presenting and sharing the ideas and understanding of the relationships among the resources needed to develop the transition support programme, the planning of programme activities, and the changes or results you hope to achieve. Results: The results of the development of the conceptual framework served as basis for the transition support programme to facilitate the competencies of newly qualified registered nurses. Conclusion: The conceptual framework could serve an effective tool in guiding the development of the transition support programme to facilitate the competencies of newly qualified registered nurses.

Background: Nursing students who will be future nurses should have adequate palliative care knowledge, positive attitude and good practices. In Namibia, the nursing students’ knowledge, attitude and practice regarding palliative care remain unknown. This study was aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitude and practices towards palliative care amongst the 4th year nursing degree students at Windhoek Campus, University of Namibia.Methods: A cross-sectional survey using a quantitative approach with self-administered questionnaire as a tool for data collection was utilised among 83 nursing degree students. A simple random sampling technique was used in selecting the participants and a response rate of 98.7% (n=82) was achieved.Results: Showed the following: knowledge towards palliative care is suboptimal as only 54.9% (45) participant had good knowledge towards palliative care, while 45.1% (37) participants had poor knowledge on palliative care. Practice towards palliative care was good as 91.5% (75) participants had good practice towards palliative care, whilst 8.5% (7) participants bad practice. The overall level of attitude shows positive attitude amongst participants as 76.8% (63) had positive attitude towards palliative care, while 23.2% (19) had negative attitude.Conclusions: Integrating palliative care education is required as a pillar to improve student’s knowledge where the nursing educators are not only designing proper teaching content but also, they are using various teaching strategies to promote active and experimental learning regarding palliative care.

Background: Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is commonly defined as blood loss of 500ml or more within 24 hours after birth. PPH is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the low-income countries and the primary cause of nearly one quarter of all maternal death globally. Namibia recorded the highest direct cause of maternal deaths for the period of April 2010 to March 2012 which was linked to bleeding after delivery. The purpose of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice towards management of PPH among third year nursing students at University of Namibia and to assess the maternal nursing care students rendered to woman with PPH.Methods: The researcher used descriptive research design and quantitative approach to collect the data. The researcher obtained primary data directly from 49 third-year nursing students of the University of Namibia (UNAM). Students filled in the Google form/online survey provided to them and all the responses were recorded on the researcher’s Google account.Results: From the study, 83.7% of the participants were females, while 14.3% were males and 2% prefer not to respond.  The results indicate that majority of the participants are competent and have sufficient knowledge and positive attitude toward management of PPH.Conclusions: It is critical that student nurses at UNAM, Main campus are trained well with the necessary PPH knowledge to save maternal lives.

The objective of this study is to determine the sexual patterns among their school and out of school adolescents in Kavango region, Namibia and identify the association between the socio-demographic characteristics of the adolescents and their sexual behaviors. A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted using mixed methods-quantitative and qualitative approaches among 350 school learners (grade 6 to grade 12) and 150 school dropout adolescents (aged 12 to 18 years). The stratified random sampling techniques were used in the selections of the circuit and the schools. Structured questionnaires were used in face-to-face interviews, and in depth interviews were conducted among the key informants (teachers). The following variables include the demographics (age, grade, parent marital status, and school drop-out status), sexual behavior (age at first sexual intercourse, number of sexual partners, abortion, and age at abortion), economic (employment, financial support). Descriptive statistics was used to summarise the above-mentioned variables. Crosstabulations of demographic, sexual and economic variables were used to describe the relative frequencies. The associations between different categorical variables were assessed using Chi-square test whilst the identification of different determining factors was analyzed with the epidemiological methods using odds ratios and/or estimated relative risks. The means, standard deviation and 95 % confidence interval were computed. The differences between different variables or factors were considered to be statistically significant for p-values less than 0.05. The study found that early sexual debut, first sexual intercourse, number of sexual partners, relationship with sexual partners older than 5 years and dropping out of schoolwere associated with adolescent pregnancy in Kavango region.

The objective is this study is to determine the potential risk characteristics among the in-school and out of school adolescents in Kavango region, Namibia. A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted using mixed methods-quantitative and qualitative approaches among 350 school learners (grade 6 to grade 12) and 150 school drop-out adolescents (aged 12 to 19 years). The stratified random sampling techniques were used in the selections of the circuit and the schools. Structured questionnaires were used in face-to-face interviews, and in depth interviews were conducted among the key informants (teachers). The following variables include the potential risk characteristics alcohol used, drug used, marijuana used, more than one sexual partner in past 12 months, partner older than 5 years, orphan, abortion, sex regularly, mothers education, contraceptive used, current pregnancy and outcome of birth. Descriptive statistics was used to summarise the above mentioned variables. Cross-tabulations of demographic, sexual and economic variables were used to describe the relative frequencies. The associations between different categorical variables were assessed using Chi-square test whilst the identification of different determining factors was analyzed with the epidemiological methods using odds ratios and/or estimated relative risks. The means, standard deviation and 95 % confidence interval were computed. The differences between different variables or factors were considered to be statistically significant for p-values less than 0.05.