Sally E Thorne

University of British Columbia - Vancouver | UBC · School of Nursing

The purpose of this study was to describe policies developed by English-speaking Canadian health authorities to guide multi-disciplinary healthcare practice in the context of MAID. Seventeen policies from 9 provinces and 3 territories were identified and analyzed thematically. Themes developed from these documents related to ensuring a team approac...

Canadian nursing practice has been profoundly influenced by the legalization of medical assistance in dying in 2016, requiring that nurses navigate new and sometimes highly challenging experiences. Findings from our longitudinal studies of nurses' experiences suggest that these include deep emotional responses to medical assistance in dying, an urg...

Background The legalization of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada in 2016 provided new impetus for improving palliative care. This commitment to improvement included the development of a National Palliative Care Framework and Action Plan. The purpose of this study was to understand the progress made in palliative care since 2016 from the perspec...

People with intellectual disability receive breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening at lower rates relative to the general population, although the reasons for this disparity are largely unknown. Research, both with the general population and specific to people with intellectual disability, has revealed that a family physician’s recommend...

Background Intolerable suffering is a common eligibility requirement for persons requesting assisted death, and although suffering has received philosophic attention for millennia, only recently has it been the focus of empirical inquiry. Robust theoretical knowledge about suffering is critically important as modern healthcare provides persons with...

Background Even as healthcare providers and systems were settling into the processes required for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) under Bill C-14, new legislation was introduced (Bill C-7) that extended assisted death to persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of nurses...

As more cancer patients survive into post-treatment, the challenge of managing their survivorship care is confronting health care systems globally. In striving to deliver high quality survivorship care, equity constitutes a particularly troublesome challenge. We analyzed accounts from both cancer survivors and stakeholders within care system manage...

Objectives: Complementary therapy (CT) use is prevalent among individuals living with cancer, who often consult family and friends (i.e., support persons) in making decisions about CT. This study examines the effect of an education seminar for adult cancer patients and support persons on the support persons' use, knowledge, and decision-making proc...

Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) obtain breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening at lower rates, relative to the general population. This cross-sectional survey study explored how primary care providers and trainees recommend cancer screening to patients with ID, using a standardized attitudes questionnaire and vignettes of fi...

Nurses play a central role in Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada. However, we know little about nurses’ experiences with this new end-of-life option. The purpose of this study was to explore how nurses construct good nursing practice in the context of MAiD. This was a qualitative interview study using Interpretive Description. Fifty-nine...

Aims and Objectives To describes nurses’ moral experiences with MAiD in the Canadian context. Background Nurses perform important roles in MAiD in Canada and do so within a unique context in which MAiD is provided through healthcare services and where accessibility is an important principle. International literature indicates that participating in...

In 1978, Barbara Carper named personal knowing as a fundamental way of knowing in our discipline. By that, she meant the discovery of self‐and‐other, arrived at through reflection, synthesis of perceptions and connecting with what is known. Along with empirics, aesthetics and ethics, personal knowing was understood as an essential attribute of nurs...

Objectives : The aim of this systematic review is to generate a qualitative synthesis of psychosocial theories being used to explain the beliefs and behaviors of people responding to loss of anatomical parts, such as breasts, limbs, or teeth. Data & sources : A search in four databases and subsequent manual search of pertinent reference lists iden...

Background: Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in June, 2016. The Canadian government's decision to legislate assisted dying, an approach that requires a high degree of obligation, precision, and delegation, has resulted in unique challenges for health care and for nursing practice. The purpose of this study was to better u...

Although models of cancer survivorship care are rapidly evolving, there is increasing evidence of health disparities among cancer survivors. In the current context, Canada’s survivorship care systems privilege some and not others to receive high-quality care and optimize their health outcomes. The aim of this study was to improve survivorship care...

Les modèles de soins aux survivants du cancer évoluent rapidement, mais des disparités en matière de santé sont néanmoins de plus en plus évidentes entre les survivants de la maladie. Le Canada n’y échappe pas, et on observe que certains survivants privilégiés reçoivent des soins de plus grande qualité et conservent donc une meilleure santé que d’a...

With the advent of legalized medical assistance in dying [MAiD] in Canada in 2016, nursing is facing intriguing new ethical and theoretical challenges. Among them is the concept of conscientious objection, which was built into the legislation as a safeguard to protect the rights of healthcare workers who feel they cannot participate in something th...

Primary care providers are the main point of contact with the healthcare system for individuals with intellectual disability, and they may have pre-existing attitudes towards this group that impacts care. We examined whether participants’ gender, age, professional status and experience with individuals with intellectual disability were associated w...

The conceptualization of assisted death as an act performed by physicians has resulted in a lack of attention to nurses' roles and experiences with the processes that surround an assisted death. In this article, we synthesize evidence from 6 articles focusing on the experiences of 55 nurses from Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands, with relevant e...

Purpose: Effective communication in cancer care and treatment is linked to better health outcomes, improved treatment adherence, and improved quality of life for cancer patients. While the characteristics of effective communication have been identified, there is sparse knowledge about the current conditions for providing effective communication es...

Background: Medical Assistance in Dying, also known as euthanasia or assisted suicide, is expanding internationally. Canada is the first country to permit Nurse Practitioners to provide euthanasia. These developments highlight the need for nurses to reflect upon the moral and ethical issues that euthanasia presents for nursing practice. Purpose:...

Canada's legalization of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016 has had important implications for nursing regulators. Evidence indicates that registered nurses perform key roles in ensuring high-quality care for patients receiving MAiD. Further, Canada is the first country to recognize nurse practitioners as MAiD assessors and providers. The p...

PurposeWith an increased investment in psychosocial caregiving research, it becomes critical to establish the need for data of key stakeholders and future strategic directions. The purpose of this international Delphi study was to engage caregivers, clinicians, researchers, and managers to identify priority topics for caregiver research in cancer c...

Purpose As patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) increasingly become key outcome indicators in health care, there has been growing concern about the potential negative consequences that could result when interpretations are being made to inform clinical and policy decisions. Therefore, we explored theoretical issues, assumptions, and consequenc...

As the body of available qualitatively derived knowledge expands, there is increasing temptation to capitalize on it to generate knowledge synthesis products. Concurrently, in the wake of an ever-expanding enthusiasm for evidence-based practice knowledge in health care, scholars are facing pressure to forgo the more narrative or interpretive form o...

Registered Protocol for a scoping review. Registered on OSF here: https://osf.io/8ufpd/

Purpose: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is popular among Chinese-speaking cancer patients (CSCPs), but little research examines CAM use by Canadian CSCPs. The use of CAM is controversial because of potential interactions with conventional cancer treatments. The purpose of this study was to explore CSCPs' use of CAM, sources of CAM in...

Aim This study expands on an earlier study about diabetes nurses’ experiences of the Guided Self‐Determination intervention in face‐to‐face consultations among people with type 2 diabetes. This current study investigates Guided Self‐Determination in an electronic format with the aim to explore what can be learned about the written form for health c...

As patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) increasingly become key outcome indicators assessing the impact of disease and its treatment, there has been growing concern about the potential for misinterpretation of these measures. Therefore, we explored potential theoretical issues, assumptions, and consequences of using PROMs in practice from a p...

Background: Adolescents with chronic health conditions and/or disabilities (CHC/D's) often face challenges when transitioning to adult care, which leads to a higher risk of morbidity and mortality. Although it is recommended that establishing the medical home and family physician (FP) attachment prior to transfer will improve health outcomes, ther...

Faggion's claim that narrative reviews necessarily lack a predefined methodology is incorrect; in our paper we refer to (and reference) three specific methodological approaches to narrative review. He appears to have erroneously conflated our acknowledgement that narrative reviews may sometimes be done badly with the conclusion that they cannot be...

As the development of nursing education becomes increasingly internationalized, it is tempting to focus on universal aspects of the discipline rather than explicitly emphasizing the distinct national cultures and contexts within which our profession and its educational styles and approaches have evolved. Capitalizing on an opportunity for comparati...

Purpose: To analyze and describe health professionals' attitudes and perspectives on the complexities of cancer survivorship and rehabilitation needs assessment in a shared cancer care context. Method: The design and methodology for this study was Interpretive Description and the analysis was informed by Symbolic Interactionism as the theoretica...

Systematic reviews are generally placed above narrative reviews in an assumed hierarchy of secondary research evidence. We argue that systematic reviews and narrative reviews serve different purposes and should be viewed as complementary. Conventional systematic reviews address narrowly focused questions; their key contribution is summarising data....

Objective: To present a theoretical reflection about the origin and the assumptions of the "Interpretive Description" method, and to discuss its applicability in Nursing and Health research. Method: Theoretical-reflective study, based on articles and books published by proponent of this approach, as well as scientific articles in which the authors...

Moral distress is a well-recognized and ubiquitous aspect of health care professional practice in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) context. We used interpretive description methodology to guide a critical exploration of the dynamics of moral distress experience as reflected in the accounts of 28 health care professionals working in this sett...

Objective: analyze cancer survivors’ reports about their communication with health professional team members and describe the similarities and differences in interactional patterns between Brazilian and Canadian health care contexts. Method: This study adopted a qualitative health research approach to secondary analysis, using interpretive descrip...

Background There is an increasing focus on the use of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care. PRO-based follow-up is a new model of service delivery, where the patient’s PRO measures are used as the very basis for outpatient follow-up. Objectives This study aimed to explore how patients with...

Continuing the dialogue and debate on the relevance and value of qualitative metasynthesis research for the health fields, Thorne comments on some of the ideas raised by Britten and colleagues in response to her January 2017 Qualitative Health Research editorial on Metasynthetic Madness. Here she extends the debate on the terminology with which we...

In this commentary, Thorne and Stajduhar respond to Sharkey and Lefebre's (2017) thoughts on Bringing Nursing Back to the Future Through People-Powered Care by reflecting on the kinds of structural and ideological conditions that have dismantled the traditional root structure by which the nursing profession nurtured its members and optimized their...

The use of correlational probability values (p-values) as a means of evaluating evidence in nursing and health care has largely been accepted uncritically. There are reasons to be concerned about an uncritical adherence to the use of significance testing, which has been located in the natural science paradigm. p-values have served in hypothesis and...

Background The uptake of various telehealth technologies to deliver health care services at a distance is expanding; however more knowledge is needed to help understand vital components for success in using telehealth in different work settings. This study was part of a larger trial designed to investigate the effect of an interactive telemedicine...

From its origins in the 1990s, the qualitative health research metasynthesis project represented a methodological maneuver to capitalize on a growing investment in qualitatively derived study reports to create an interactive dialogue among them that would surface expanded insights about complex human phenomena. However, newer forms positioning them...

In an environment in which evidence-based practice is the espoused norm, nurses have understandably sought to frame the knowledge they deem relevant to practice decisions, including the findings of their qualitative studies, as a form of evidence. However, since cancer patients face a significant challenge interpreting various evidence claims, it i...

A palliative approach involves adapting and integrating principles and values from palliative care into the care of persons who have life-limiting conditions throughout their illness trajectories. The aim of this research was to determine what approaches to nursing care delivery support the integration of a palliative approach in hospital, resident...

Background: Many patients with atrial fibrillation experience uncertainty and psychological distress. Internet support groups for atrial fibrillation have yet to be studied. Aim: To determine the content and dialogue on an online message board for atrial fibrillation with the purpose of elucidating information and support needs from patient pers...

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and interpret the attitudes and conduct of hospital healthcare professionals (HCPs) in association with male cancer survivors and their municipal rehabilitation participation. Design: Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted, consisting of participant observation and 9 semi-structured focus group int...

An increasing appreciation for the burden that chronic conditions represent for people and for societies has triggered an evolving body of popular and professional conceptualizations of the nature of the chronic disease challenge. In this discussion article, we trace the trajectory of thinking about chronic illness care, surfacing underlying assump...

Background Introducing new technology in health care is inevitably a challenge. More knowledge is needed to better plan future telemedicine interventions. Our aim was therefore to explore health care professionals’ experience in the initial phase of introducing telemedicine technology in caring for people with diabetic foot ulcers. Methods Our met...

Seventy six senior academics from 11 countries invite The BMJ’s editors to reconsider their policy of rejecting qualitative research on the grounds of low priority.They challenge the journal to develop a proactive, scholarly, and pluralist approach to research that aligns with its stated mission

Despite sustained debate and progress the evolving thing that is evidence based nursing or practice (EBP) continues to dangle a variety of conceptual and practical loose threads. Moreover, when we think about what is being asked of students and registered or licenced practitioners in terms of EBP, it is difficult not to concede that this ‘ask’ is i...

AimTo discuss the implications of drawing on core nursing knowledge as theoretical scaffolding for qualitative nursing enquiry.Background Although nurse scholars have been using qualitative methods for decades, much of their methodological direction derives from conventional approaches developed for answering questions in the social sciences. The q...

Background: Some patients receiving treatment in conventional health care systems access therapeutic yoga outside their mainstream care to improve cancer symptoms. Given the current knowledge gap around patient preferences and documented experiences of yoga in adult cancer, this study aimed to describe patient-reported benefits, barriers and chara...

An increase in patient-led uptake of complementary therapies in adult cancer has led to a need for more rigorous study of such interventions and their outcomes. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a yoga intervention in men and women receiving conventional treatment for a cancer diagnosis. Prospective, mixed...

In an era of in which " evidence based " practices have become uncritically preferred over those that are not in many quarters, it is not surprising that we encounter considerable controversy over the matter of what constitutes evidence. In the wider health care delivery system discourse, for example, an evidence based claim about one's services be...

Because nursing interventions are typically complex and dynamic, evaluating their impact upon care and care systems is a notoriously daunting challenge. Nursing organizations seeking to evaluate the impact of their efforts are frequently frustrated by the gap between the evaluation research ideal and their available resources. In this paper, we des...

Comme les interventions infirmieres ont tendance a etre complexes et dynamiques, l’evaluation de leur incidence sur les soins et les systemes de soins est un defi de taille bien connu. Les organisations infirmieres qui cherchent a evaluer l’incidence de leurs efforts se trouvent souvent frustrees par le fosse existant entre l’ideal de la recherche...

The history of ideas in nursing has been fraught with complications associated with the limitations in language to articulate the nature of our distinctive professional discipline. Nursing is at the same time something everyone understands and no one can articulate with any precision. Just ask tiny children on any playground, and they will probably...

Canadian nurses, with their colleagues around the globe, are experiencing waves of change in their practice and work lives, and in expectations of how they will continue to make a difference for health and health care. We describe how Canadian nurses have been called to action to lead system wide changes in nursing practice, and to influence the wi...

We recognize a paradox of power and promise in the context of legislative and organizational changes in nurse regulation which poses constraints on nursing's capacity to bring voice and influence to pressing matters of healthcare and public policy. The profession is at an important crossroads wherein leaders must be well informed in political, econ...

The tight bond between grounded theory (GT) and symbolic interactionism (SI) is well known within the qualitative health research field. We aimed to disentangle this connection through critical reflection on the conditions under which it might add value as an underpinning to studies outside the GT tradition. Drawing on an examination of the central...

Keyword analysis has been championed as a methodological option for expanding the insights that can be extracted from qualitative datasets using various properties available in qualitative software. Intrigued by the pioneering applications of Clive Seale and his colleagues in this regard, we conducted keyword analyses for word frequency and "keynes...