Global Nursing Issues and Development: Analysis of World Health Organization Documents.
OBJECTIVE
To analyze World Health Organization (WHO) documents to identify global nursing issues and development.


METHODS
Qualitative content analysis.


METHODS
Documents published by the six WHO regions between 2007 and 2012 and with key words related to nurse/midwife or nursing/midwifery were included. Themes, categories, and subcategories were derived. The final coding reached 80% agreement among three independent coders, and the final coding for the discrepant coding was reached by consensus.


RESULTS
Thirty-two documents from the regions of Europe (n = 19), the Americas (n = 6), the Western Pacific (n = 4), Africa (n = 1), the Eastern Mediterranean (n = 1), and Southeast Asia (n = 1) were examined. A total of 385 units of analysis dispersed in 31 subcategories under four themes were derived. The four themes derived (number of unit of analysis, %) were Management & Leadership (206, 53.5), Practice (75, 19.5), Education (70, 18.2), and Research (34, 8.8).


CONCLUSIONS
The key nursing issues of concern at the global level are workforce, the impacts of nursing in health care, professional status, and education of nurses. International alliances can help advance nursing, but the visibility of nursing in the WHO needs to be strengthened.


CONCLUSIONS
Organizational leadership is important in order to optimize the use of nursing competence in practice and inform policy makers regarding the value of nursing to promote people's health.
Pi Iota, Professor, School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China SAR.
Frances Kam Yuet
FK
Wong
Epsilon Zeta, Professor & Director of WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing Policy-Making and Quality Management, School of Nursing, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Huaping
H
Liu
Registered Nurse, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China.
Hui
H
Wang
Phi Delta at Large, Director of Research, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia.
Debra
D
Anderson
Phi Delta at Large, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia.
Charrlotte
C
Seib
Chair Professor & Director of WHO Collaborating Centre for Community Health Services, School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China SAR.
Alex
A
Molasiotis
D015400:Clinical Nursing Research; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D008880:Midwifery / Q000458:organization & administration*; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009726:Nurses; D009729:Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000458:organization & administration; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000592:standards; D014944:World Health Organization
Global health; management and leadership; nursing impacts; quality of services