The impact of psychosocial indicators Nurse scientist Linda Smulders about her research

Nurse scientist and PhD candidate Linda Smulders researches psychosocial indicators that impact patients. She wants to embed the role of data more deeply in nursing practice. 

'Improving care using data is a common thread in my career. We can do so much more with data in healthcare if we use it efficiently. My challenge in the coming years is to record less, but in a different way, so we get more out of it. I’ve worked at Radboudumc for twenty years, first as a nurse, now as a nurse scientist. I’m also doing PhD research on how we can improve psychosocial care using data. This care focuses on anxiety, depression, and emotional well-being. Nurses can add enormous value here. 

'We know, for example, that many people scheduled for surgery experience anxiety. Nurses provide psychosocial care to support patients, but this isn’t currently documented in a structured way. As a result, we can’t assess the effect of this care on individual patients or groups within a care pathway. I’m convinced we can help patients better if we can, and structured documentation helps.' 

'In a literature review, I examined whether and how psychosocial care is measured. In my second study, I interviewed nurses in various hospitals about care improvements and data use. I often hear there’s no time, but I want to know why. What’s behind that? I’ll use these findings as input for follow-up research, where I’ll work with nurses to see how we can improve psychosocial care in practice using data—without increasing registration time.'