Healthcare workers who have received disaster preparedness education are more likely to report a greater understanding of disaster preparedness. However, research indicates that current nursing curricula do not adequately prepare nurses to respond to disasters. This is the first study to assess Asia-Pacific nurses' perceptions about their level of disaster knowledge, skills, and preparedness. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 757 hospital and community nurses in seven Asia-Pacific countries. Data were collected using the modified Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool. Participants were found to have overall low-to-moderate levels of disaster knowledge, skills and preparedness, wherein important gaps were identified. A majority of the variance in disaster preparedness scores was located at the level of the individual respondent, not linked to countries or institutions. Multilevel random effects modelling identified disaster experience and education as significant factors of positive perceptions of disaster knowledge, skills, and management. The first step toward disaster preparedness is to ensure frontline health workers are able to respond effectively to disaster events. The outcomes of this study have important policy and education implications.

The purpose of this literature review is to explore the relationship between nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, burnout, and nursing care quality through a consideration of what is meant by perceptions of nursing care quality. Different people define nursing care quality in many ways. It is complex, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, and attempts to assess, monitor, evaluate and improve nursing care quality have evolved over a number of years. Of particular interest is the way in which changes in nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, and burnout may affect the quality of nursing care delivery. A search was conducted using the CINAHL, Medline and Embase databases, HINARI, Science Direct, Google, and PubMed. The terms searched included quality of health care; nursing care quality; nurse job satisfaction; nurse practice environment; burnout; and nurse staffing. Papers were included for their relevance to the field of enquiry. The original search was conducted in 2003 and updated in 2004. Quality of care is a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which presents researchers with a challenge when attempting to evaluate it. Many different tools have assessed nursing care quality. In addition, the review found that there were relationships between nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, burnout, and nursing care quality.

Background Primary health care (PHC) is usually the initial point of contact for individuals seeking to access health care and providers of PHC play a crucial role in the healthcare model. However, few studies have assessed the knowledge, ability, and skills (capacity) of PHC providers in delivering care. This study aimed to identify the capacity of PHC providers in countries of the Southeast and East Asian Nursing Education and Research Network (SEANERN). Methods A multi-national cross-sectional survey was performed among SEANERN countries. A 1–5 Likert scale was used to measure eight components of knowledge, ability, and skill of PHC providers. Descriptive statistics were employed, and radar charts were used to depict the levels of the three dimensions (knowledge, skill and ability) and eight components. Results Totally, 606 valid questionnaires from PHC providers were returned from seven countries of SEANERN (China, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia), with a responsive rate of 97.6% (606/621). For the three dimensions the ranges of total mean scores were distributed as follows: knowledge dimension: 2.78~3.11; skill dimension: 2.66~3.16; ability dimension: 2.67~3.06. Furthermore, radar charts revealed that the transition of PHC provider’s knowledge into skill and from skill into ability decreased gradually. Their competencies in four areas, including safe water and sanitation, nutritional promotion, endemic diseases prevention, and essential provision of drugs, were especially low. Conclusions The general capacity perceived by PHC providers themselves seems relatively low and imbalanced. To address the problem, SEANERN, through the collaboration of the members, can facilitate the appropriate education and training of PHC providers by developing feasible, practical and culturally appropriate training plans. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-4402-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of many. Particularly, nursing students experience greater stress as their normal curriculum is interrupted and some of them face the risk of being infected as frontline workers. Nursing faculty members may face similar struggles, in addition to developing teaching materials for online learning. Thus, it is important to examine the faculty members' and students' views on their ability to adapt during the pandemic to obtain a holistic view of how learning and training has been affected. Design The descriptive cross-sectional quantitative design was used. Settings Data were collected from Southeast and East Asian Nursing Education and Research Network (SEANERN) affiliated nursing institutions from January 2021 to August 2021. Participants A total of 1897 nursing students and 395 faculty members from SEANERN-affiliated nursing institutions in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam were recruited for this study. Methods Quantitative surveys were used to explore the satisfaction levels in education modalities, confidence levels, psychosocial well-being, sense of coherence and stress levels of nursing students and faculty members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Participants were mostly satisfied with the new education modalities, although most students felt that their education was compromised. Both groups showed positive levels of psychosocial well-being, despite scoring low to medium on the sense of coherence scale and experiencing great stress. The participants' sense of coherence was positively correlated with their psychosocial well-being and negatively correlated with stress levels. Conclusions While the COVID-19 pandemic had negatively impacted the lives of nursing students and faculty members, most of them had a healthy level of psychosocial well-being. Having a strong sense of coherence was associated with better psychosocial health and lower stress levels. As such, it may be helpful to develop interventions aimed at improving the sense of coherence of nursing students and staff to help them manage stressors better.

Aim and objectives To explore the perceptions and experiences of Cambodian ICU registered nurses regarding their working 24‐hr shifts. Background In Europe and the USA, nurses are moving to a 12‐hr shift, and numerous studies have revealed the positive and negative effects of these. However, lesser known is the impact of 24‐hr nursing shifts on care quality, and health and safety. In Cambodia, 100% of nurses are rostered for these in their shift patterns, but until this study no research had been conducted on such shifts. Design A qualitative descriptive study. Method Three focus group discussions were conducted with 30 registered nurses in July 2019, ten in each group, from three intensive care units of three hospitals in Cambodia. Data saturation was obtained. Data were analysed using content analysis, and the COREQ was applied for reporting this study. Findings The ICU nurses’ perspectives revealed significant and unacceptable effects of working shifts of ~25‐hr length, taking into account staff handover. Two major themes arose: It is so exhausting and Compromised hospital care. Alarmingly, participants worked on average 72 hr per week, were exhausted, and nursed between 6 and 10 critically ill patients per shift. Conclusion To our knowledge this is the first study on nurses working 24‐hr shifts, revealing unacceptable, high risks for the health and safety of nurses and patients, with nursing activities left undone, and a lack of quality care. Relevance to clinical practice Improving nurse and patient health and safety, and quality of care requires hospital leaders to work with government and nursing organisations to develop better shift strategies. Resources need to be provided so that: nurses can work a maximum 12‐hr shifts; the ratio of nurses to patients is improved; and nurses can have decent break times. This has major implications, for not only practice, but also management, administration, budgets and education.

The results of this systematic review contribute to the ability of nurse managers to improve and consider the measurement of nursing care quality in clinical practice. The first suggests the need to understand the different perceptions of both nurses and patients' instruments regarding NCQ. Also, a health-care quality-related policy should also be formulated to reduce adverse events. The recording system policy must be designed appropriately in order to monitor patient outcomes every year.