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Career indecision plays a major role in the way students perceive their future career prospects and how they approach these prospects. In addition, career indecision influences career‐related thoughts and decisions, and plays a role in the way students formulate career goals. A convenience sample from honours students in Accounting Sciences, Financial Management, Economics and Marketing was drawn and their levels of career indecision were measured using self‐administered questionnaires. The study demonstrates that differences exist between students whose employment status differs, and those who were studying for different degrees. Consequently, this study has vital implications for groups (such as career counsellors and educational institutions) involved in the career decision‐making processes of university students.

This paper synthesises the literature on the issues related to the older patient, health service quality and its measurement. It discusses the need to consider these perspectives in the definition and assessment of quality of a community‐focused aged healthcare programme, and critically examines the existing evaluation of quality in healthcare, contrasting the patient's role and impact on the quality of the service and its outcome. The paper then reviews the documented problems associated with using satisfaction as an indicator of the patient's view of quality. An alternate validated approach to measuring the patient's perception of the quality of the service is identified in the services literature; this multidimensional hierarchical tool and scale, which specifically measures the patient's view of quality, is presented. The tool covers nine sub‐dimensions, four dimensions and the global perspective of quality as perceived by the patient. An adaptation of this tool is presented to measure the patient's view of quality using the relatively new Transition Aged Care programme as an example, and make the argument for the holistic measurement of transitional aged care quality, using a validated and reliable patient‐specific tool. Importantly, the paper proposes that the identification of the patient view of service quality will offer information that could specifically assist with service improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the knowledge and practices of nursing staff caring for patients with dysphagia to determine any needs for further education programmes.

A self-administered questionnaire with close-ended questions was completed by nurses at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia to measure the depth of their dysphagia knowledge.

From 316 potential participants, a sample of 174 nurses completed the questionnaire. The results revealed that the participants had partial theoretical and practical knowledge about nursing care for patients with dysphagia. Of interest, 78 per cent of the nurses reported that they had received less than 1 h of training in dysphagia, and only 4 per cent were aware of speech and language pathologists’ role in dysphagia management.

As the medical professionals who have the most contact with the patients, nurses have a central role in the care of patients with dysphagia. This study provides information that will guide strategies for in-service nurse education dysphagia programmes.

The estimated Saudi prevalence of dysphagia is high due to increased incidence of medical conditions commonly associated with dysphagia, such as stroke, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injuries from traffic accidents. Nurses play a pivotal role in caring for these patients. However, little is known about the level of care patients with dysphagia require in Saudi hospital settings.

Contract manufacturing as a concept will be utilised increasingly during the 1990s and beyond. The use of this facility can make life a great deal easier for manufacturing engineering management, specially in recessionary periods. Savings in time, aggravation and, above all, costs, are vital. Anyone considering the setting‐up of a new business venture would be well recommended to consider the implementation of contract manufacturing – especially those businesses in the mechanical, electronic and electrical manufacturing industries.

An extensive radon remediation programme in National Health Service properties in Northamptonshire has been conducted since 1992 and has resulted in many buildings with raised levels being identified and remediated. In the autumn of 1997, several of the remediated properties were surveyed in order to determine the viability of the remedial measures and the dose reduction to staff. The initial assumption that reduction factors in radon levels would be greater than reduction factors in radiation dose per person was partially confirmed. This was due to the part‐time working patterns of staff and their mobility during working hours.

This paper aims to disseminate the results of research aiming to identify the prevalence of dysphagia and related clinical factors in nursing home residents.

A cross-sectional descriptive study was developed, including 99 residents in five nursing homes. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Gugging Swallowing Screen for dysphagia screening were used for data collection.

The prevalence of dysphagia was 59.59%. A significant correlation was found between dysphagia and worse scores for fall risk, pressure ulcer, level of independence for activities of daily living and cognitive functioning.

Results should be interpreted carefully due to sample size and specific country context. A larger sample must be achieved in further research.

Nurses must receive proper training to perform systematic dysphagia screening, and it should be considered, given the high prevalence, the inclusion of professionals specially trained for rehabilitating dysphagic residents in nursing home teams.

The social and economic burden of dysphagia, in addition to all the implications on the person’s quality of life, requires a differentiated focus on this issue by nursing home managers.

Nursing homes have nurses providing health care; however, trained professionals for dysphagia treatment commonly are not. These results highlight the importance of systematic screening for dysphagia in all residents, thus promoting timely intervention to prevent respiratory and nutritional complications.

Health research in the UK is being impeded by a stretched NHS system. The purpose of this paper is to use the Great Fire of Rome as an allegory to understand the difficulties encountered by health researchers when attempting to conduct research within a healthcare system that is currently in crisis.

The paper draws on both the authors’ own and other research teams’ experiences from the published literature in order to demonstrate that this difficulty is a widespread problem for the health research community in the UK.

Recruitment and engagement issues across different research studies and clinical environments are often ascribed as being related to individual contexts or settings. Rather, the authors propose that these problems are actually writ large across nearly the entire NHS. The authors offer ideas for what can be done to alleviate the worst of this situation – a change in culture and ways of working alongside employing more pragmatic, rapid methods to engage exceptionally busy healthcare staff.

The paper offers a provocative viewpoint that instead of seeking to individualise recruitment and engagement issues in relation to the local context, the research community should publicly acknowledge the universality of this problem in order to bring about meaningful change.