Dr
Ciara
White

Primary Department
School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health
Role
Academic Staff - General Nursing
Phone number: 01 700
7808
Campus
Glasnevin Campus
Room Number
H234

Academic biography

Ciara is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health at Dublin City University since September 2020. She graduated as a Registered General Nurse from Dublin City University in 2000 and as a Registered Nurse Tutor in 2009. Ciara completed a PhD Scholarship at University College Dublin in 2020. Her 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 (Renal Nursing) in Dublin City University. The thesis was entitled Effect of Patient Coping Preferences on Quality of Life Following Renal Transplantation.

Ciara’s research interests are focused upon health systems research, nursing workforce, professional work environments, care rationing and nursing terminologies, namely ICNP. Her methodological areas of expertise are in quantitative, ‘modified Delphi’ and mixed methods. Ciara has held various nursing and project officer roles within the Health Service Executive, most recently developing and implementing Nursing and Midwifery Quality Care-Metrics, a national system of process measurement and quality improvement. She is currently involved in numerous digital health research projects and is a keen advocate for promoting nursing scholarship.

Her clinical nursing background is in nephrology nursing and Ciara has worked in various nursing roles across chronic kidney disease, haemodialysis, home therapies and renal transplant in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin from 2000-2014.

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.

Other research interests include health systems research, nursing workforce, professional work environments, care rationing, quality measurement, quality improvement, nursing informatics and ICNP.