Aims To provide: (a) an overview of interventions aimed at improving mental health of student or novice nurses; and (b) an evaluation of their effectiveness on dropout-related outcomes. Design Systematic review. Data sources Research papers published between January 1971-February 2019 were identified from the following databases: Embase, Medline, PsycInfo, CINAHL, ERIC, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Review methods We followed the procedures recommended by the Editorial Board of the Cochrane Collaboration Back Review Group. We included peer-reviewed articles with a quantitative research design, examining interventions aimed at improving mental health of student and novice nurses and their effect on dropout-related outcomes. The large variation in studies prohibited statistical pooling and a synthesis without meta-analysis of studies was performed. Results We identified 21 studies with three areas of focus: managing stress or stressors (N = 4); facilitating the transition to nursing practice (N = 14); and a combined approach (N = 3). Five studies showed a statistically significant effect on dropout-related outcomes. The overall risk of bias was high. Conclusion A wide range of interventions are available, but the evidence for their effectiveness is limited. There is a need for high-quality studies in this field, preferably with a randomized controlled design.
Improving mental health of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: A systematic review
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2020/05/1515-May-2020
Re: JAN-2019-1029.R3: Improving mental health of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: a systematic review
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Decision Letter
2020/05/0505-May-2020
Re: JAN-2019-1029.R2: Improving mental health of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: a systematic review
Dear Mrs Bakker,
We recognise that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic may affect your ability to return your revised manuscript to us within the requested timeframe. If this is the case, please let us know.
Thank you for sending us the above manuscript. It has been considered with care and the editor and reviewer comments are shown at the end of this email. As these comments indicate, the paper does need revision before we can consider it further, and I look forward to receiving your revised version as soon as possible, and no later than 05-Jun-2020. If this poses any problems, please contact me at jan@wiley.com.
Please take care to ensure that your revised manuscript addresses all of the editor and reviewer comments. Please also see the sections on general points to remember and search engine optimisation (SEO) at the end of the email.
EDITOR'S COMMENTS: Thank you for resubmitting your manuscript, the amendments are acknowledged.
Apologies that we did not pick this up last time.
- There is a charge for colour figures in the print based journal. To avoid this charge please move all colour figures to supplemental online only files.
- We also identified that the included study table contains a lot of useful information but is too big for the print journal. Please move this table to a supplemental online only file and for readers without web access, please ctreate a new small included study table (no more than 3 lines per study) for inclusion in the print journal with cross referencing to the larger supplemental online table.
Many thanks.
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GENERAL POINTS TO REMEMBER:
It is essential that you format your manuscript using the author guidelines for the type of paper you submitted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/13652648/homepage/forauthors.html
Use APA style for citations and references – please see the author guidelines: https://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.
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Format the headings like this: main headings upper case, major sub-headings lower case, subsidiary sub-headings italics.
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Please ensure your Background and Discussion include up-to-date literature.
The Conclusion section should not be a summary or repetition of previous content. This section should provide a discussion of the implications for practice or policy and recommendations for further work.
For Review and Discussion papers, provide the inclusive years of literature searched in both the abstract and the text (not the year(s) when the literature was searched).
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Thank you choosing JAN for your paper.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Jane Noyes
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Decision Letter
2020/04/1616-Apr-2020
Re: JAN-2019-1029.R1: Interventions aimed at improving mental health of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: a systematic review
Dear Mrs Bakker,
We recognise that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic may affect your ability to return your revised manuscript to us within the requested timeframe. If this is the case, please let us know.
Thank you for sending us the above manuscript. It has been considered with care and the editor and reviewer comments are shown at the end of this email. As these comments indicate, the paper does need revision before we can consider it further, and I look forward to receiving your revised version as soon as possible, and no later than 17-May-2020. If this poses any problems, please contact me at jan@wiley.com.
Please take care to ensure that your revised manuscript addresses all of the editor and reviewer comments. Please also see the sections on general points to remember and search engine optimisation (SEO) at the end of the email.
EDITOR'S COMMENTS: Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript. The amendments are acknowledged.
Please cross check reporting against the new synthesis without meta-analysis reporting guideline for this type of review.
https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.l6890
To avoid confusion, please do not refer to a qualitative synthesis as this can become confused with qualitative evidence synthesis (ie of primary qualitative studies). Please refer to synthesis without meta-analysis in line with the new agreed guideline.
To revise your manuscript, log on to ScholarOne Manuscripts: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jan
Please use red font to indicate the revised portions of your manuscript (no tracked changes or strike-through please).
Please ensure that you detail the changes you have made in the 'comments to decision letter' section of the submission process. I would be grateful if you could also upload your response as a separate, anonymous file (in the 'upload files' stage of the submission process) when you submit your revised paper.
GENERAL POINTS TO REMEMBER:
It is essential that you format your manuscript using the author guidelines for the type of paper you submitted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/13652648/homepage/forauthors.html
Use APA style for citations and references – please see the author guidelines: https://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.
Your revised word count must not exceed 5000 words for the text, exclusive of the abstract, references, tables and figures.
Format the headings like this: main headings upper case, major sub-headings lower case, subsidiary sub-headings italics.
The international relevance of the topic should be indicated in the Introduction section of the paper.
Please ensure your Background and Discussion include up-to-date literature.
The Conclusion section should not be a summary or repetition of previous content. This section should provide a discussion of the implications for practice or policy and recommendations for further work.
For Review and Discussion papers, provide the inclusive years of literature searched in both the abstract and the text (not the year(s) when the literature was searched).
The abstract should not include abbreviations or references.
Please include up to 10 key words, including nurse or nursing, which should follow the abstract. Please note these do not have to match the keywords selected in ScholarOne, which are to assist with assigning reviewers.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION:
Tips for making sure articles can be easily found online are available in the attached PDF.
Please ensure that your keywords accurately reflect the content of your manuscript.
I look forward to receiving your revised paper. Please do not hesitate to contact me at jan@wiley.com if there is anything in this letter that needs more explanation.
Thank you choosing JAN for your paper.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Jane Noyes
Editor
Journal of Advanced NursingDecision letter by
Cite this decision letter
- pre-publication peer review (ROUND 1)
Decision Letter
2020/01/2121-Jan-2020
Re: JAN-2019-1029: Interventions aimed at improving mental health or mental capacity of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: a systematic review
Dear Mrs Bakker,
Thank you for sending us the above manuscript. It has been considered with care and the editor and reviewer comments are shown at the end of this email. As these comments indicate, the paper does need revision before we can consider it further, and I look forward to receiving your revised version as soon as possible, and no later than 21-Feb-2020. If this poses any problems, please contact me at jan@wiley.com.
Please take care to ensure that your revised manuscript addresses all of the editor and reviewer comments. Please also see the sections on general points to remember and search engine optimisation (SEO) at the end of the email.
EDITOR'S COMMENTS:
Only the following comments/suggestions need to be addressed please.
REVIEWER COMMENTS:
Reviewer: 1
Comments to the Author
1. P6 L19 sex → gender
2. P13L51 sex → gender
3. P14L24 although the turnover rate for the control group (37%) was little over a third that of the intervention group (14%), this statement does not make sense!
4. In summary, most part of this paper is written clearly. The only comment to the authors is that when you put student nurses and novice nurses together to examine the dropout, you may want to rethink, when student nurses dropout, does it mean to leave future nursing career? Yet for novice nurses dropout, does it mean to leave current nursing practicing setting? and move to another if possible. The discussion can go more in-depth.Reviewer: 2
Comments to the Author
This systematic review purely relies on descriptive narratives, and thus, is sound from the statistical point of view, except for Table 1, which includes statistical summaries and aspects. I have one comment that needs to be addressed to improve the statistical presentation, as indicated below:• Pages 32-40, Table 1: The test upon which each p-value is based should be stated. A p-value without associated statistical test cannot be interpreted.
Reviewer: 3
Comments to the Author
Dear Author/s,Thank you for submitting this interesting paper. In my view, this topic should be of interest to several readers in education, management and practice. The paper is generally well structured and easy to read. However, I have a number of suggestions for refinement for your consideration.
In the ABSTRACT, IMPACT and INTRODUCTION: Please give some form of indication about the types of interventions you have in mind. I am aware that you explain these later and that these mainly emerged from the review itself, but it would be helpful if the readers get a clearer idea as to what you were looking for.
In the BACKGROUND section, please provide a clear definition of what you mean by “mental health” and “mental capacity”. This will be helpful to justify the focus, nature and inclusion/exclusion criteria of the review later in the paper.
The AIM of a systematic review is not normally “to provide an overview”; consider revising the verbs chosen for the aims.
STUDY SELECTION: Please provide your rationale for the inclusion/exclusion criteria (a clear list of which is provided on page 5).
SYNTHESIS: Please carefully explain how you determined that there was “clinical, practical and methodological heterogeneity in the studies” (p. 6). Did you statistically test the presence of heterogeneity?
QUALITY APPRAISAL: Consider toning down the statement that “no high-quality studies were identified” because the main sources of bias in the studies were inherent in the type of design. Consider something on the lines of all studies had considerable sources of bias.
OUTCOMES: please comment more extensively on the accuracy with which the outcomes were measured and these outcomes’ relevance to the aims of the review.
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INTERVENTIONS: Please comment on the statistical analysis used in the primary studies included in the review.
On page 15 you describe the increase in sick leave as an “adverse effects” of interventions aimed at supporting newly qualified nurses. But couldn’t this be actually due to an increased awareness about the importance of not reporting to work when one is somewhat unwell, which may have been part of the message imparted by the interventions?
DISCUSSION: On page 17, you rightfully point out that the studies with positive findings were conducted in the mid-eighties. However, in my view, this requires some elaboration. According to the literature, did sources of stress increase or decrease in that time? In what way could that have impacted on the findings?
Please clarify the statement that “most studies lacked a research study dropout analysis” (p. 18).
On page 18 you rightfully raise the distinction between “voluntary and involuntary attrition”. Please discuss about the implications of the findings from studies that failed to make this distinction and / or how future research could address this important point.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Sensible implications for more and better research are provided but ideally there should also be a couple of implications for management/education arising from the state of knowledge about the topic so far.
FIGURE 1: If you made even minor modifications please refer to the flow diagram as a “modified PRISMA flow diagram”, in the caption to the figure and when you refer to it in the text on page 7. In the diagram, consider rewording “wrong” study design to a more objective comment about the study design being different from those in your inclusion criteria.
APPENDIX 1: columns headings are missing from the table.
There is room for some refinement in the punctuation and choice of terms, some of which are colloquial, e.g. “to bundle the existing research” (p. 4) and “a great deal” (p. 14). “Rigorousness” needs rewording to “rigour” (p. 4). “PRISMA” (p.4) and any other acronyms need to be written in full the first time.
To revise your manuscript, log on to ScholarOne Manuscripts: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jan
Please use red font to indicate the revised portions of your manuscript (no tracked changes or strike-through please).
Please ensure that you detail the changes you have made in the 'comments to decision letter' section of the submission process. I would be grateful if you could also upload your response as a separate, anonymous file (in the 'upload files' stage of the submission process) when you submit your revised paper.
GENERAL POINTS TO REMEMBER:
It is essential that you format your manuscript using the author guidelines for the type of paper you submitted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/13652648/homepage/forauthors.html
Use APA style for citations and references – please see the author guidelines: https://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.
Your revised word count must not exceed 5000 words for the text, exclusive of the abstract, references, tables and figures.
Format the headings like this: main headings upper case, major sub-headings lower case, subsidiary sub-headings italics.
The international relevance of the topic should be indicated in the Introduction section of the paper.
Please ensure your Background and Discussion include up-to-date literature.
The Conclusion section should not be a summary or repetition of previous content. This section should provide a discussion of the implications for practice or policy and recommendations for further work.
For Review and Discussion papers, provide the inclusive years of literature searched in both the abstract and the text (not the year(s) when the literature was searched).
The abstract should not include abbreviations or references.
Please include up to 10 key words, including nurse or nursing, which should follow the abstract. Please note these do not have to match the keywords selected in ScholarOne, which are to assist with assigning reviewers.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION:
Tips for making sure articles can be easily found online are available in the attached PDF.
Please ensure that your keywords accurately reflect the content of your manuscript.
I look forward to receiving your revised paper. Please do not hesitate to contact me at jan@wiley.com if there is anything in this letter that needs more explanation.
Thank you choosing JAN for your paper.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Yingjuan Cao
Editor
Journal of Advanced NursingDecision letter by
Cite this decision letter
Reviewer report
2019/12/17Dear Author/s,
Thank you for submitting this interesting paper. In my view, this topic should be of interest to several readers in education, management and practice. The paper is generally well structured and easy to read. However, I have a number of suggestions for refinement for your consideration.
In the ABSTRACT, IMPACT and INTRODUCTION: Please give some form of indication about the types of interventions you have in mind. I am aware that you explain these later and that these mainly emerged from the review itself, but it would be helpful if the readers get a clearer idea as to what you were looking for.
In the BACKGROUND section, please provide a clear definition of what you mean by “mental health” and “mental capacity”. This will be helpful to justify the focus, nature and inclusion/exclusion criteria of the review later in the paper.
The AIM of a systematic review is not normally “to provide an overview”; consider revising the verbs chosen for the aims.
STUDY SELECTION: Please provide your rationale for the inclusion/exclusion criteria (a clear list of which is provided on page 5).
SYNTHESIS: Please carefully explain how you determined that there was “clinical, practical and methodological heterogeneity in the studies” (p. 6). Did you statistically test the presence of heterogeneity?
QUALITY APPRAISAL: Consider toning down the statement that “no high-quality studies were identified” because the main sources of bias in the studies were inherent in the type of design. Consider something on the lines of all studies had considerable sources of bias.
OUTCOMES: please comment more extensively on the accuracy with which the outcomes were measured and these outcomes’ relevance to the aims of the review.
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INTERVENTIONS: Please comment on the statistical analysis used in the primary studies included in the review.
On page 15 you describe the increase in sick leave as an “adverse effects” of interventions aimed at supporting newly qualified nurses. But couldn’t this be actually due to an increased awareness about the importance of not reporting to work when one is somewhat unwell, which may have been part of the message imparted by the interventions?
DISCUSSION: On page 17, you rightfully point out that the studies with positive findings were conducted in the mid-eighties. However, in my view, this requires some elaboration. According to the literature, did sources of stress increase or decrease in that time? In what way could that have impacted on the findings?
Please clarify the statement that “most studies lacked a research study dropout analysis” (p. 18).
On page 18 you rightfully raise the distinction between “voluntary and involuntary attrition”. Please discuss about the implications of the findings from studies that failed to make this distinction and / or how future research could address this important point.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Sensible implications for more and better research are provided but ideally there should also be a couple of implications for management/education arising from the state of knowledge about the topic so far.
FIGURE 1: If you made even minor modifications please refer to the flow diagram as a “modified PRISMA flow diagram”, in the caption to the figure and when you refer to it in the text on page 7. In the diagram, consider rewording “wrong” study design to a more objective comment about the study design being different from those in your inclusion criteria.
APPENDIX 1: columns headings are missing from the table.
There is room for some refinement in the punctuation and choice of terms, some of which are colloquial, e.g. “to bundle the existing research” (p. 4) and “a great deal” (p. 14). “Rigorousness” needs rewording to “rigour” (p. 4). “PRISMA” (p.4) and any other acronyms need to be written in full the first time.
Reviewed by
Cite this review
Reviewer report
2019/10/30This systematic review purely relies on descriptive narratives, and thus, is sound from the statistical point of view, except for Table 1, which includes statistical summaries and aspects. I have one comment that needs to be addressed to improve the statistical presentation, as indicated below:
• Pages 32-40, Table 1: The test upon which each p-value is based should be stated. A p-value without associated statistical test cannot be interpreted.
Reviewed by
Cite this review
Reviewer report
2019/10/22- P6 L19 sex → gender
- P13L51 sex → gender
- P14L24 although the turnover rate for the control group (37%) was little over a third that of the intervention group (14%), this statement does not make sense!
- In summary, most part of this paper is written clearly. The only comment to the authors is that when you put student nurses and novice nurses together to examine the dropout, you may want to rethink, when student nurses dropout, does it mean to leave future nursing career? Yet for novice nurses dropout, does it mean to leave current nursing practicing setting? and move to another if possible. The discussion can go more in-depth.
Reviewed by
Cite this review
