Hanna-Leena Melender

• PhD, Docent
• Director of Nursing Excellence at HUS Group

Adolescents’ mental well-being is affected by a variety of different factors and their mental health has been a subject of great concern worldwide. Research has demonstrated the importance of how we arrange young people’s mental health promotion and preventive actions. The aim of this qualitative study was to examine mental health nurses’ competenc...

The purpose of this mapping review was to examine the Recommendations of the Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) in relation to the contents of the Nurses' Competency Scale (NCS). The BMHI domains were mapped to the NCS categories to find analogous competence areas. As a conclusion, a cons...

Background Specialists were asked to describe the most essential palliative and end-of-life care competencies needed in their working units, in order to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon. Aim To describe the most essential competencies of palliative-care nurses and physicians. Methods The data was collected using an open-ended question i...

The purpose of this clinical practice guideline implementation effort was to put into practice a Finnish nursing guideline on emotional support for preschool-aged children in day-surgery nursing for nurses at a day-surgery unit. The strategy was to use a 10-step framework in the implementation process. In this brief article, the strategy and the ou...

Palliatiivinen hoito tarkoittaa parantumatonta, kuolemaan johtavaa tai henkeä uhkaavaa sairautta sairastavan potilaan ja hänen läheistensä aktiivista, kokonaisvaltaista hoitoa. Maailman terveysjärjestön mukaan palliatiivisen hoidon tarve kasvaa lähitulevaisuudessa eniten Euroopassa suhteutettuna väestöön. Suomessa on tutkittu varsin vähän asiantunt...

Background: Nurses must possess adequate competencies to provide high-quality palliative care. Earlier statements have described certain competencies that are relevant for palliative care, yet only limited empirical research has focused on the perspective of health care professionals to clarify which competencies are required for different levels o...

Background: Emergency care clinicians are expected to use the latest research evidence in practice. However, emergency nurses do not always consistently implement evidence-based practice (EBP). An educational intervention on EBP was implemented to promote emergency nurses' use of EBP, and the effectiveness of it was evaluated. Aims: This study a...

Knowledge about mothers’ perceptions of the quality of Finnish maternity services is limited. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to describe mothers’ perceptions of the quality of Finnish maternity services, and to identify background factors associated with them. The data were collected from 1,760 mothers in autumn 2016. Descriptive statist...

Education is one of the central interventions to promote evidence-based practice (EBP) in service organizations. An educational intervention to promote EBP among health and social care professionals was implemented in a Finnish hospital. The aim of this study was to explore the outcomes of an educational intervention, focusing on the basics of EBP...

Background: Although statements on the competencies required from physicians working within palliative care exist, these requirements have not been described within different levels of palliative care provision by multi-professional workshops, comprising representatives from working life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the compet...

Background Emergency nurses are expected to follow recent research findings and ensure that their practice is based on evidence. Yet, during busy work-shifts in overcrowded emergency departments, evidence-based practice (EBP) is not always implemented. Aim To describe emergency nurses’ EBP attitudes, self-efficacy, knowledge, skills and behaviours...

The purpose of this study was to describe fathers’ experiences of the newborn life support for their baby at delivery room.

The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement started at the beginning of the 1970s in the field of medicine. The famous definition by Sackett et al. (1997, p. 2) defined evidence-based medicine as ‘the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.’ The idea of EBP was lat...

Introduction: Emergency nurses are expected to adopt evidence-based practice (EBP). The aim of this systematic review was to describe educational interventions promoting EBP and their outcomes among emergency nurses, compared with no education, to inform clinicians and researchers about effective educational interventions suitable for use in emerg...

Background: Breastfeeding is an important element of motherhood with a preterm infant, but the role of maternal emotions in relation to breastfeeding is vague. Purpose: To describe maternal emotions regarding and insights into breastfeeding during the first year after a preterm birth. Methods: In total, 80 mothers of preterm infants (<35 gesta...

Learning about how to develop and lead the implementation of evidence based practice (EBP) in services is an important part of the education of developers and managers for the social and health care sectors. In order to develop this teaching and to support the development of EBP in services, a Teaching Development Effort (TDE) was conducted by esta...

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine whether an Internet-based peer-support intervention has an effect on the duration of breastfeeding or breast milk expression or maternal breastfeeding attitude compared with routine care in the mothers of preterm infants. In addition, the feasibility of the intervention was examined. Background: A few p...

Aims: To gather, assess and synthesise the currently available evidence of educational interventions on evidence-based nursing (EBN). Background: Previous systematic reviews have focused on the items used in reporting educational interventions for facilitating evidence-based practices in medicine and health care or teaching research literacy in...

Objective: To determine factors that predict the initiation and frequency of breastfeeding, attitudes about breastfeeding, and the self-efficacy of mothers of preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit. Design: A structured survey using two measurement points. Setting: A university hospital in Finland. Participants: Mothers (N = 124)...

Background Two previous systematic reviews describe studies on journal clubs from 1995 to 2007. AimsTo gather, assess, and synthesize the current empirical evidence on implementation of journal clubs, influencing factors, and outcomes of journal clubs in promoting evidence-based nursing. Design: A systematic review based on the procedure of the Cen...

The aim of this systematic review was to gather, assess and synthesize evidence on educational interventions promoting learning and implementation of evidence-based practice in nursing education and their outcomes. Literature was sought from the Cochrane, CINAHL and PubMed databases. The data (10 articles) were analysed by applying qualitative cont...

Clinical preception in practice plays a significant role in the education of both Registered Nurses and practical nurses. This study presents the evaluation of an interprofessional research and development project (2009–2103) on clinical preceptorship between two universities of applied sciences, two vocational institutes and four healthcare organi...

Clinical preception in practice plays a significant role in both registered and practical nurse studies. As such, the cooperation between the faculty and working life is important to narrow the theory-practice gap, with emphasis being placed on a student-oriented approach promoting self-direction and lifelong learning. The aim of this project was t...

The Internet and social media provide various possibilities for online peer support. The aim of this review was to explore Internet-based peer-support interventions and their outcomes for parents.

Positive preceptor experiences enhance learning and even affect the decisions of students to remain in nursing. In light of this, nurse managers have a responsibility, besides maintaining staff competence, to assess whether preceptors live up to their professional obligations. The aim of this Nordic qualitative study was to gain a deeper understand...

Preterm infants are usually breastfed less than full-term infants, and successful breastfeeding requires a supportive environment and special efforts from their mothers. A breastfeeding peer-support group, utilising social media, was developed for these mothers in order to support them in this challenge. Mothers were able to discuss breastfeeding a...

The purpose of this study was to compare the experiences of a group of Swedish and two Finnish groups of student nurses (n=86) on the quality of clinical education over time. The data was collected using an instrument including four factors. In the comparison of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011/2012 (n=86), there were no statistically significant diff...

The purpose of this study was to compare the experiences of three groups of undergraduate student nurses on the quality of clinical education over time. The study is part of a longitudinal research and development project in Finland and Sweden. The sample (n = 109) consisted of three subgroups of student nurses: the first in a Swedish faculty (SWE)...

Background: Nursing is a practice-based discipline. Clinical practice settings are important in preparing undergraduate nursing students for the role of registered nurse. Aim: The aim of this Nordic qualitative study is to illuminate first year undergraduate nursing students' experiences of clinical practice during their first clinical placement...

This study examined the experience of being a clinical preceptor. A purposive sample of 15 nurses from Västerbotten, Sweden, and 15 nurses from Ostrobothnia, Finland, served as informants. The data were collected through interviews and analysed through qualitative content analysis. Three themes were examined: supervision; reflection and critical th...

The aim of this study was to evaluate how student nurse teachers meet the requirements of nurse teachers as they practice teaching in nurse education. The data was collected by the Evaluation of Requirements of Nurse Teachers (ERNT), as self-evaluations and peer evaluations answered by 40 student teachers over three years. The response rate was 82%...

to inform the organisation of the maternity services in Scotland, a phenomenological study was planned to examine maternity decision making in two similarly small countries. The aim was to examine the experience of contributing to decisions at clinical, organisational and policy-making levels. When examples were needed the informants were asked to...

The aim of this study was to describe pregnant Finnish women's perceptions of a good childbirth. Data were collected through semistructured interviews in maternity health care clinics and maternity hospitals. Data interpretation was based on content analysis. A purposive sample of 24 pregnant women aged 19 to 45, half of them expecting their first...

Women's fear toward pregnancy and childbirth is a common and important health concern. This study examined the objects, causes, and manifestations of maternal fears and their associated demographic factors in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese pregnant women. Three hundred Chinese pregnant women were recruited in an obstetric unit in Hong Kong in 2003....

This paper aims to identify similarities and differences between the Finnish and UK systems of maternity care. Issues relating to maternity care policy emerge as crucial. Topics for comparison were identified during visits to Finnish hospital and community settings. These topics formed the basis of a selective review of the literature. Qualitative...

The aim of this study was to describe the sense of security associated with pregnancy and childbirth and to identify factors associated with it. Security was conceptualized in accordance with Kaufmann as a human need and as a human value. The instrument used was a questionnaire with a 4-point scale. The sample consisted of 481 pregnant Finnish wome...

The purpose of this study was to describe the causes of fear associated with pregnancy and childbirth and to describe coping strategies of pregnant women who have fears. Data were collected by using semistructured interviews on the maternity units of two university hospitals in Finland. A convenience sample of 20 women served as participants, and d...

Women may experience a variety of fears in association with pregnancy and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to describe their objects, causes, and manifestations, and to identify factors associated with the fears. The study sample comprised 481 pregnant women in western Finland, of whom 329 (response rate 69) completed a questionnaire. It w...

The aim of this study was to describe security associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Security was described as a human need and as human value. Data were collected in semi-structured interviews in two maternity health care clinics. Data interpretation was based on the method of content analysis. A convenience sample of 20 volunteer Finnish wome...

To describe fears associated with pregnancy and childbirth and to see whether women who have recently given birth feel that their fears were justified. A qualitative study. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews. Data interpretation was based on the method of content analysis. The maternity units of two university hospitals in Finland. A...