Emerging Research

CONCLUSION: Undergraduate nursing students who identify as neurodivergent contribute valuable strengths to the profession, including empathy, creativity and innovative problem-solving. Yet, systemic barriers within educational and clinical environments often impede their progress. To support their success, nursing education must embrace inclusive teaching practices, recognise and legitimise accommodations and offer flexible assessment formats. Adopting a social justice lens toward neurodiversity...

CONCLUSIONS: In community-dwelling older adults, irregular social rhythms and depressive symptoms are independently and jointly associated with reduced quality of life. These findings highlight social rhythm regulation as a relevant and potentially modifiable target for preventive and supportive interventions aimed at promoting mental well-being and resilience in later life.

CONCLUSION: Literature on neurodivergent nurses in the workplace is scarce. Neurodivergence offers strengths and challenges, yet ableism and limited research restrict well-being and professional advancement.

Although widely contested, psychiatry continues to function as a dominant governing framework for mental distress within contemporary healthcare. While critiques of psychiatry have proliferated across survivor movements, mad studies, neurodiversity advocacy, and critical nursing scholarship, much of this work remains tethered to humanist assumptions that seek recognition, inclusion, or rights for a stabilized subject. This article argues that psychiatry functions not merely as a contested...

INTRODUCTION: The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training (OMMT) on Learning Disability and Autism was developed to address recognized gaps in healthcare professionals' education and training. Under the Health and Care Act, 2022, healthcare providers are required to ensure staff receive role-appropriate training in autism and learning disabilities. In response, NHS England introduced OMMT as a standardized national programme to support the development of a skilled and inclusive healthcare workforce,...

Autism is increasingly understood from a neurodiversity-affirmative perspective recognising the unique contributions of autistic individuals. Despite this shift, the specific experiences of autistic healthcare students in clinical placements remain underexplored. This scoping review aims to map existing literature on this topic, identifying both barriers and enablers to learning in clinical environments. Using Arksey and O'Malley's framework, with methodological updates, a comprehensive search...

Sam Foster reflects on why organisations should embrace neurodiversity and considers ways to create healthcare environments that are more supportive for neurodivergent patients and colleagues.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is widely presented as an objective psychiatric diagnosis describing emotional and relational distress. However, feminist, decolonial, neurodiversity and lived experience-led scholarship demonstrates that BPD emerged within colonial, cisheteronormative, misogynist and neuronormative epistemologies that moralise distress and regulate identity, self-expression and access to care. This paper critically examines BPD as a diagnostic construct and governance...

Neurodivergent children face unique challenges during medical procedures due to distinct sensory processing patterns and communication difficulties. Evidence-based interventions for procedural pain/distress may inadequately address their specific needs, leading to undertreated distress and negative healthcare experiences.Following Joanna Briggs Institute methodology, we conducted comprehensive searches across six databases on January 10, 2025, for studies published 2014-2025 focusing on...

In this article, the author argues that the neurodiversity paradigm must be integrated into nursing care. Neurodivergent groups, such as autistic and ADHD people (which this article focuses on), are prevalent worldwide, with diagnoses steadily increasing as societal awareness and understanding continue to grow. Neurodivergent patients may have needs that differ from the majority, making it essential for nurses to provide care that accommodates these differences. To achieve this, the...