Dr
Ciara
White
Academic biography
Ciara White, PhD, MSc, RGN, RNT
Assistant Professor & Programme Chair, BSc in General Nursing
School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, Dublin City University
Ciara has been an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health at Dublin City University since September 2020 and currently serves as Programme Chair of the BSc in General Nursing undergraduate programme.
She graduated as a Registered General Nurse from DCU in 2000 and as a Registered Nurse Tutor in 2009. She completed her PhD Scholarship at University College Dublin in 2020. Her doctoral thesis was entitled “A mixed-methods study examining the impact of the nurse practice environment on quality of nursing care and patient outcomes in Irish acute hospitals.” In 2007, she completed an MSc in Renal Nursing at DCU; her thesis was entitled “Effect of Patient Coping Preferences on Quality of Life Following Renal Transplantation.” Her research interests include: - Health systems research and nursing workforce issues - Professional work environments and care rationing - Nursing terminologies, namely ICNP - Nurse education innovation, with a particular focus on simulation and virtual reality in teaching and learning Her methodological expertise spans quantitative research, mixed methods, and ‘modified Delphi’ studies. Ciara is a Co-Investigator on the Horizon 2020 project GERONTE, which focuses on improving integrated care for older people with multimorbidity. She is also leading innovations in nurse education through simulation and virtual reality projects, having secured successful competitive funding as: Principal Investigator (PI) of the 2025 Bodyswaps x Meta grant and PI on the SATLE-funded THRIVE-VR project Ciara has held various nursing and project officer roles within the Health Service Executive (HSE), most notably contributing to the development and implementation of Nursing and Midwifery Quality Care-Metrics, a national system of process measurement and quality improvement. She remains actively engaged in digital health research and is a keen advocate for advancing nursing scholarship. Her clinical background is in nephrology nursing. From 2000–2014, she worked in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, across chronic kidney disease, haemodialysis, home therapies, and renal transplant services.
Research interests
Ciara's doctoral research sought to identify the nurse practice environment factors, within acute care hospital services in Ireland, which are considered essential to ensure the delivery of quality nursing care as measured by nursing quality care indicators, and associated nursing sensitive patient outcomes utilizing mixed methods
sequential exploratory design. Integration of findings from both research phases identified five overarching issues highlighting the role of i) nursing management & nursing leadership; ii) nursing workforce and workload; iii)
nursing’s role conflict and role ambiguity in the practice environment; iv) moral distress and v) fostering nurse engagement: feeling valued as significant issues emerging from the study.
Research interests include: