BackgroundWorking in the perioperative context is complex and challenging. The continual evaluation in this environment underscores the need for adaptability to technological advancements, and requires substantial allocation of resources for training and education. This study aimed to explore personality characteristics of nurse anesthetists and surgical nurses that are instrumental for sustainable employability in technologically advanced environment.MethodsExploratory, cross-sectional survey study including nurse anesthetists and surgical nurses, both certified and in training, and a sample of the normative Dutch population. Personality characteristics were identified with the Big Five Inventory, which consisted of 60 items answered on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree).ResultsSpecific personality traits were found for nurse anesthetists and surgical nurses when compared to the normative Dutch population. Traits of both nurse anesthetists and surgical nurses differed significantly on all domains of the Big Five Inventory, with the largest differences found within the dimension negative emotionally.ConclusionsThis study highlights the role of specific personality traits in maintaining employability within the rapidly evolving and technologically advanced landscape of healthcare. It emphasizes the relationship between individual traits and professional excellence, being crucial educational strategies for overall improvement in healthcare.
After the integration of research activities, universities of applied sciences (UASs) have formulated organisational strategies to foster connections between research and education (Daas et al., 2023). Scholars stated that the behaviour of employees within UASs influences ‘the direction and tempo in which the proposed aims are reached or resisted in the wider organisation’ (Griffioen & De Jong, 2017, p. 454). Thus, employees within UASs, such as academics and lower-level managers, play a key role in establishing research-education connections (Jenkins & Healey, 2005; Van der Rijst, 2009). A recent study has shown that academics and lower-level managers connect research and education through three types of behaviours: by involving aspects of research in education, by involving aspects of education in research, and by involving aspects of research and education equally, with the first type mentioned most often (Daas & Griffioen, in review). Similar patterns are observed in previous studies highlighting how education benefits from research rather than vice versa (Taylor, 2007). However, the beliefs underpinning this behavioural focus still remain unclear. Scholars have reported factors that could influence employees in connecting research and education, such as career stages, personal abilities and the availability of resources influencing how academics combine research and teaching tasks (Coate, Barnett & Williams, 2001; Shin, 2011), and research productivity and teaching beliefs influencing how academics integrate research in teaching (Hu et al., 2015; Magi & Beerkens, 2016). Despite the important value of these insights, these studies all focus on one (set of) behaviour(s) in connecting research and education instead of considering factors influencing behaviours in connecting research and education holistically. Moreover, most of these studies consider academics instead of managers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the beliefs underpinning the behaviour of academics and lower-level managers in UASs in connecting research and education.To study the underpinning beliefs we applied the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) as a theoretical lens. According to the TPB, a person’s behavioural intentions are shaped through three determinants (Ajzen, 1991). Behavioural beliefs (1) refer to a person’s conceptions about the expected positive/negative outcomes of practicing the behaviour. Normative beliefs (2) consist of a person’s conceptions about whether others approve/disapprove of practicing the behaviour. Control beliefs (3) are a person's conceptions about the presumed factors that could enable/hinder in practicing the behaviour. The research question is: Which behavioural, normative and control beliefs underpin the behaviour of academics and lower-level managers in connecting research and education?
The purpose of this study was to analyse knowledge management research trends to understand the development of the field using a combination of scientometric, bibliometric, and visualisation techniques, subsequently developing a normative framework of knowledge management from the results.282 articles between the years 2010–2015 were retrieved, analysed, and visualised to produce the state of knowledge management during the selected timeframe. The results of this study provide a visualisation of the current research trends to understand the development of the knowledge management discipline. There are signals that the literature about knowledge management is progressing towards academic maturity. This study is one of the first studies to combine bibliometric and scientometric methods to assess productivity along with visualisation, and subsequently provide a knowledge management framework drawing from the results of these methods.
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Although cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is being recognized as an important marker of health and functioning, it is currently not routinely assessed in daily clinical practice. There is an urgent need for a simple and feasible exercise test that can validly and reliably estimate an individual’s CRF. The Steep Ramp Test (SRT) is such a practical short-time exercise test (work rate increments of 25 W/10 seconds, so the test phase will only take up to 4 minutes) on a cycle ergometer, that does not require expensive equipment or specialized knowledge, and has been found able to validly and reliably estimate an individual’s CRF. Although the SRT is already frequently used in the Netherlands to evaluate CRF, sex- and age-specific reference values for adults and elderly are lacking thus far, which seriously limits the interpretation of test results.
