To present the current evidence on the nature and principles of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Nursing Education Institutions (NEIs).
Five databases (CINAHL, Medline, Scopus, ERIC and Educational Research Complete) and websites of Canadian nursing education institutions were searched for studies and grey literature on EDI. Information was analysed using the Diversio Diversity and Inclusion Survey (DDIS) framework to highlight the nature and principles of EDI in NEIs. A content analysis guided by a deductive approach informed the data synthesis.
Eighty-eight studies (90 papers) published between 1999 and 2025 were included from 1301 identified articles in the database search. The websites of seven nursing institutions in Alberta, Canada, were examined. The review revealed facilitators, barriers and gaps. The results illustrated the presence and need for diversity, inclusion, equal opportunity and fairness, employing the DDIS framework across participant groups, curricula and contexts.
The literature on EDI in NEI is diverse and provides many facilitators, barriers, challenges and gaps. This review reveals the need for intervention and review studies to highlight specific practices that can lead to successful EDI implementation in NEIs.
These results show that further research is required to refine the definition of EDI within the nursing academy. Evidence must be advanced to develop nursing theories, frameworks and methods specific to EDI implementation.
Promoting EDI is a vital goal for the nursing profession, and there is a need to understand how EDI behaves in NEIs. This review revealed facilitators, challenges, barriers, gaps and principles of EDI that exist within NEI in the literature. This data can support policy and practice change within NEIs and promote EDI within those organisations.
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist was adhered to in this review.
This study did not include patient or public involvement in its design, conduct, or reporting.
Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) of unknown origin, affecting the gastrointestinal tract and often causing extraintestinal symptoms. Conventional treatments (eg, glucocorticosteroids, immunomodulators) and targeted advanced treatments, including anti-TNFα, antibodies to p40 subunit of IL-12/23, antibodies to p19 subunit of IL-23, anti-α4β7 integrin, Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKis) and sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor (S1PR) modulators, do not achieve sustained responses for all patients, leaving significant unmet therapeutic needs.
This prospective, multi-centre observational study will follow a cohort of 240 patients across multiple study centres within NHS trusts in the UK who are initiating or switching biologics, specifically anti-TNFα and anti-α4β7 integrin for UC, and anti-TNFα, antibodies to p40 subunit of IL-12/2 and JAKi for CD. Through comprehensive profiling of immunological, transcriptional, microbiome, genetic and proteomic markers at baseline, week 12, and week 52, this study aims to uncover non-invasive biomarkers that predict response to these drug classes, ultimately advancing personalised medicine in IBD.
Ethical approval for the Nottingham/AstraZeneca study was granted by the West of Scotland Research Ethics Committee. Recruitment began in December 2022 and is currently ongoing at 10 NHS Trust sites across the UK. Study findings will be disseminated by publication in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at relevant national and international conferences.
During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a notable decline in emergency department (ED) usage in many jurisdictions. This study assessed changes in ED use during this period and explored how the pandemic may have aggravated existing healthcare access inequities.
Our primary objective was to assess pandemic-related changes to ED visits and emergency hospitalisations for distinct demographic groups.
We conducted a retrospective observational study using population-based provincial administrative data.
We analysed data from all the 109 EDs and urgent care centres in Alberta, Canada, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (15 March 2020 to 30 June 2020), and during the corresponding (control) period 1 year earlier. We conducted subgroup analyses by age, First Nations status, sex, location and material deprivation. We repeated all analyses for pre-selected life-threatening emergency diagnoses.
We examined outcomes for a priori subgroups, including female and ‘other’ sex patients, paediatric patients (age 0–17 years), seniors (age 65 years and older), patients living in remote areas (greater than 200 km from an urban centre), First Nations members and patients living in materially deprived postal codes falling into the two most deprived Pampalon Index quintiles.
Primary outcomes were number of ED visits, number of ED visits with admission to hospital and number of ED visits resulting in patient death in the ED. A secondary outcome was change in ED use for life-threatening diagnoses (eg, cardiac conditions and hepatic disease).
ED visits in the COVID-19 period decreased by 34% (Poisson means test p
Reductions in critical emergency care and emergency hospital admissions were unequally distributed across demographic groups during the COVID-19 period. Study methods could be used to monitor and support equitable access to emergency care among distinct populations.
To analyse the relationship between authentic nursing leadership and safety climates across hospital settings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authentic nursing leadership shapes the safety climate by fostering positive perceptions of workplace policies, processes, procedures and practices that influence how safety is prioritised and addressed within an organisation.
A cross-sectional study.
Our study was conducted from December 2021 to December 2022 in six Brazilian hospitals. Participants were nursing staff working in General Medicine Units, Intensive Care Units (ICU) and Emergency Departments (ED) who provided care to patients with COVID-19. The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire were used to measure nursing staff perceptions of authentic leadership and safety climates. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
391 nursing staff across six hospitals participated. Self-awareness significantly enhanced perceptions of the safety climates. Additionally, being a Registered Nurse and working in the ICU were positively associated with achieving safe climates in the working environment. In contrast, working in EDs was significantly negatively related to safety climates.
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored a lack of authentic nursing leadership and unsafe climates. Therefore, it is critical to implement educational strategies that foster authentic leadership, particularly focusing on self-awareness, to promote more positive safety climates. Ensuring that leadership and safety climates are relationship-focused is critical to enhancing patient outcomes.
Nursing staff's perceptions of authentic leadership and safety climates are important in making more informed decisions about patient management.
Since self-awareness increases positive perceptions of safety climates, nursing staff should exercise it to guide their actions in facing future health crises.
STROBE guidelines.
Higher self-awareness in relationships with others is a predictor of safety climates and can lead to enhanced patient outcomes.
Sepsis is a major cause of death both globally and in the United States. Early identification and treatment of sepsis are crucial for improving patient outcomes. International guidelines recommend hospital sepsis screening programmes, which are commonly implemented in the electronic health record (EHR) as an interruptive sepsis screening alert based on systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria. Despite widespread use, it is unknown whether these sepsis screening and alert tools improve the delivery of high-quality sepsis care.
The Sepsis Electronic Prompting for Timely Intervention and Care (SEPTIC) master protocol will study two distinct populations in separate trials: emergency department (ED) patients (SEPTIC-ED) and inpatients (SEPTIC-IP). The SEPTIC trials are pragmatic, multicentre, blinded, randomised controlled trials, with equal allocation to compare four SIRS-based sepsis screening alert groups: no alerts (control), nurse alerts only, prescribing clinician alerts only, or nurse and prescribing clinician alerts. Randomisation will be at the patient level. SEPTIC will be performed at eight acute-care hospitals in the greater New York City area and enrol patients at least 18 years old. The primary outcome is the percentage of patients with completion of a modified Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) hour-1 bundle within 3 hours of the first SIRS alert. Secondary outcomes include time from first alert to completion of a modified SSC hour-1 bundle, time from first alert to individual bundle component order and completion, intensive care unit (ICU) transfer, hospital discharge disposition, inpatient mortality at 90 days, positive blood cultures (bacteraemia), adverse antibiotic events, sepsis diagnoses and septic shock diagnoses.
Ethics approval was obtained from the Columbia University Institutional Review Board (IRB) serving as a single IRB. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journal(s), scientific meeting(s) and via social media.
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT06117605 and