Marking excellence in contributions to the gerontological nursing literature

Now in our second decade of publication as an independent journal, International Journal of Older People Nursing (IJOPN) is redoubling efforts to improve care for older people, prepare nurses to improve the effectiveness of their practice and bring researchers together with an expanding community of consumers for their science—readers from all over the world. A global community, composed of an engaged and interactive group of nurses and other colleagues from many different countries, sustains IJOPN as a conduit for nursing knowledge. Excellence propels this journal to greater levels of achievement, and now, we celebrate excellence within the IJOPN community now in two ways. Firstly, we are pleased to announce our second annual awards for outstanding papers. With our commitment to exemplary peer review, we acknowledge the members of our paper awards committee for their dedicated service in identifying the recipients of these awards. This year, Dr Jennifer Baumbusch of the University of British Columbia—recipient of one of our inaugural paper awards last year—joined returning members Prof Joyce Varner of the University of South Alabama in the United States, Dr Victoria Traynor of the University of Wollongong in Australia and Dr Joanne Fitzpatrick of King's College London in the United Kingdom. Together they and we examined all papers published in IJOPN during the past calendar year, drawing a short list from an outstanding group of papers. The four recipients of the awards represent the best in scientific methodologies and implications for practice. Secondly, we introduce a new award this year to acknowledge those who must usually remain anonymous despite their enormous contributions to successful publication of any given manuscript—our peer reviewers. IJOPN is excited to bestow two awards for Outstanding Peer Review, the first in an annual tradition. In keeping with our principle of blinded review, we selected the award recipients from a short list compiled from all reviews completed in 2016. Our Editor Emeritus, Prof Brendan McCormack of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, arbitrated the short list and noted the remarkable quality of the reviews in the short list. However, Prof McCormack determined that two stood out as “detailed, specific, clearly structured, insightful and critical.” He continued, saying that these two reviewers were “helpful in providing guidance on how the paper can be enhanced and kind in their approach, style and way of engaging with the authors.” Here are the citations for all of the 2016 IJOPN Awards. We invite you, as members of our global community, to join us in rejoicing over our colleagues’ achievements and marking their excellent contributions to the world of gerontological nursing! Award-winning papers presented a qualitative or quantitative analysis, the findings of which have potential to influence practice in gerontological nursing. Exceptional and possibly groundbreaking insights arising from clear aims extended in thoughtfully conceived and carefully conducted investigations distinguish the award-winning papers. We are pleased to present two awards in this category, both to gerontological nurses reporting their dissertation research. Prof Beryl Cable-Williams for her paper: Cable-Williams B. & Wilson D.M. “Dying and death within the culture of long-term care facilities in Canada” (2016). International Journal of Older People Nursing. On receiving her award, Prof Cable-Williams noted: “My research concerning the end-of-life in LTC was inspired when I worked in hospice palliative care and realized that referrals from LTC frequently came within the last day of life. It was commonly too late for our services to be of any benefit. Staff members confirmed what the published research suggested; that the likelihood of dying was often not recognized in LTC until death was only hours away. I wondered why, given the advanced old age, degree of infirmity, and documented short duration of stay between admission and death, it would not be recognized that a palliative approach to care would be considered well in advance of the time of death. This clinical observation led to the research question ‘How does the culture of LTC influence awareness of impending death?’ which became the topic for my PhD dissertation research. Dr Donna Wilson, my supervisor at the University of Alberta, provided outstanding mentorship in the development and reporting of my research.” Dr. Hiromi Hirata for her paper: Hirata H. and Harvath T.A. “Japanese care workers’ perception of dementia-related physically and psychologically aggressive behaviour symptoms” (2016). International Journal of Older People Nursing. When told of her award, Dr Hirata replied: “This manuscript was a part of my dissertation. When I submitted it, I thought it might be viewed as an incomplete paper. My reviewers gave me very nice and appropriate comments, so my manuscript was polished by them. On the way to revising my manuscript, I was about to give up and not finish it because editing it was tough. But, I did not give up as my co-author (who was my dissertation chair for the dissertation) always encouraged me.” Papers worthy of the awards in methodological innovation offer original and innovative analysis in gerontological nursing marked by notable rigour. Award-winning papers report exacting and clearly executed methods well matched to the challenges inherent in the research question posed by the authors. We cite two papers this year for superlative methodological contributions, the first to an established investigator and the second to an author who was a student at the time the work was completed. Dr Esther Coker for her paper: Coker, E., Ploeg, J., Kaasalainen, S., and Carter, N. (2016) Nurses’ oral hygiene care practices with hospitalised older adults in postacute settings. International Journal of Older People Nursing. Dr Coker offered these insights when we told her of her award: “I was inspired to conduct this research project because nurses have the potential to significantly impact oral health outcomes but little is known about oral hygiene care practices in hospital settings where oral care may be overlooked or trivialized. Typically nurses document that oral care was done, but not what it entailed. I thought that illuminating the oral hygiene care practices of nurses would make it possible to determine whether those interventions contain the ‘active ingredients’ thought to have an impact on oral health outcomes and would reveal the nature of any gaps between current and desirable knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours.” Ms Tinna Elfstrand Corlin for her paper: Elfstrand Corlin, T., Kajonius, P. J. and Kazemi, A. T. (2016) “The impact of personality on person-centred care: a study of care staff in Swedish nursing homes.” International Journal of Older People Nursing. On receiving her award, Ms. Elfstrand Corlin responded that by saying: “Being interested in tapping into the relationship between the care staff's personality traits and the care process on an individual level, we felt it was imperative to explore this separately from the organisational level aspects. In doing so, we were able to uncover the interplay between person and situation in relation to provision of person-centred care.” Dr Catherine (Cathy) Bailey, on receiving her award, reflected “To be honest, I very much enjoy the role of peer reviewing and particularly for your journal. It gives me insight into some highly creative and challenging research, practice and innovation that colleagues across the world, are implementing to make a positive difference to the quality of later life. There are times when I struggle to meet a deadline or find myself a little bit puzzled by an article's structure or a particular line of argument. However that in and of itself is very rewarding, as it shakes me out of complacency, gets me thinking, reflecting and searching for new evidence, so ‘keeps me on my toes’!”. Dr Justine Sefcik responded to her award, saying: “I feel that as a peer reviewer my role is to help support my colleagues and journal editors through the process of manuscript review and revision for publication. The way that I provide a peer review of a manuscript was inspired by a mentoring experience and consideration for how I prefer to receive a review of my own work. I strive to give explicit feedback in terms of what I think the authors could change or expand on that will make their work stronger and provide a detailed, useful report to the audience. I also make every effort to be kind with feedback that I provide because I know how much time and effort is involved with developing a manuscript.”

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