NURSING AND MIDWIFERY COME UNDER MICROSCOPE IN UNIQUE E-COHORT STUDY
University of Queensland (UQ) researchers are undertaking the largest and only longitudinal study of nurses and midwives ever attempted in the world.
Associate Professor Cathy Turner, Director of Research (Acting) at UQ's School of Nursing and Midwifery, is leading the Nurses and Midwives e-cohort project, which is looking into the work, health and wellbeing of those involved in these crucial health professions.
Despite being the largest single health professional group in Australia, Dr Turner said very little detailed research had been done on workforce trends over time within the nursing and midwifery professions and there are no previous longitudinal studies.
“Nurses make up 50 percent of the entire Australian health care workforce and are critical to the health and welfare of all Australians,” Dr Turner said.
“There are about 270,000 nurses and midwives in Australia and yet we have little data about the factors affecting their work and health but have recently had to deal with severe workforce shortages.
“This study will provide important information to inform education and workforce policy for the nursing and midwifery professions and in addition, will have the capacity to examine a range of population health outcomes."
Earlier in 2007 Dr Turner was also awarded a five-year Career Development Award from the Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council to continue work on the study.
Dr Turner is one of eight UQ researchers conducting this study which also hopes to look at the issues associated with the short supply of nurses, not only in Australia but also in New Zealand where similar workforce problems existed.
“The median age is 42 and we already have a critical shortage of nurses at the moment and it is only going to get worse with our ageing nursing and midwifery workforce, retention problems and our ageing population.”
Dr Turner said people studying undergraduate nursing programs would also be targeted in the study to try and quantify the attrition from those studying nursing at university and the retention of new graduates into the profession.
To date the Australian Research Council-funded study has recruited more than 10,000 nurses and midwives in Australia and New Zealand to take part in the project, which operates out of the School of Nursing and Midwifery based at the UQ Ipswich Campus.
Dr Turner said the project was also unique in that it would be one of the first to employ electronic research methods on such a large scale.
“Historically, studies of this nature are expensive as they are conducted in traditional paper-based mode and the studies are therefore confined to one country,” Dr Turner said.
“Developing and employing e-research techniques will significantly reduce the costs and enable recruitment of multiple international cohorts.”
In 2006 Dr Turner spent several months with Harvard University in the United States under a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, working with researchers who have been conducting the Harvard Nurses' Health Study to learn about the challenges of longitudinal studies.
Media inquiries: Associate Professor Cathy Turner (07 3346 4852) or email
catherine.turner@uq.edu.au or Sarah Schindeler (0410 136 147).