Lenus: Research Repository

Ireland's central source for Open Access health research:


Lenus contains the research output of Health Service Executive (HSE) and over 130 other organisations in Ireland. Anyone who has conducted health related research in an institution or health organisation in Ireland, can upload their published research to Lenus by clicking ‘Submit Research’.

 

HSE Open Access Research Awards 2025

The 12th annual HSE Open Access Research Awards are now open for entries.

The awards are judged across the following categories:

 

Acute Care and Hospitals

Community and Social Care

Mental Health and Disabilities

Integrated Services

 

Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges with research experience. There will be a prize for each category, and an overall winner will also be selected, representing the best of all submissions received. 

 

A special Innovation prize will be awarded to recognise outstanding recent developments in practice or service delivery.

 

Winners will receive a custom piece of glassware celebrating their achievement.   

 

Criteria for Entry 

 

  • The research must have been published within the two years (24 months) prior to the closing date

 

  • The research must be available in full text in an Open Access forum (and added to the Lenus repository as a condition of entry)

 

  • At least one author must be working for or on behalf of the Irish health services

 

Entries close on Friday October 24th 2025 and the winners will be announced in early December. For more information, email lenus@hse.ie. 

  

Enter Now

Featured Items

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An Evaluation of the Impact of a Multicomponent Stop Smoking Intervention in an Irish Prison.

Bowe, Andrea; Marron, Louise; Devlin, John; Kavanagh, Paul

The disproportionately high prevalence of tobacco use among prisoners remains an important public health issue. While Ireland has well-established legislative bans on smoking in public places, these do not apply in prisons. This study evaluates a multi-component tobacco control intervention in a medium security prison for adult males in Ireland. A stop-smoking intervention, targeting staff and prisoners, was designed, implemented, and evaluated with a before-and-after study. Analysis was conducted using McNemar's test for paired binary data, Wilcoxon signed rank test for ordinal data, and paired T-tests for continuous normal data. Pre-intervention, 44.3% (n = 58) of the study population were current smokers, consisting of 60.7% of prisoners (n = 51) and 15.9% of staff (n = 7). Post-intervention, 45.1% of prisoners (n = 23/51) and 100% of staff (n = 7/7) who identified as current smokers pre-intervention reported abstinence from smoking. Among non-smokers, the proportion reporting being exposed to someone else's cigarette smoke while being a resident or working in the unit decreased from 69.4% (n = 50/72) pre-intervention to 27.8% (n = 20/72) post-intervention (p < 0.001). This multicomponent intervention resulted in high abstinence rates, had high acceptability among both staff and prisoners, and was associated with wider health benefits across the prison setting.

2021-11-15

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Applying a new approach to the governance of healthcare quality at board level

Martin, Jennifer; Khurshid, Zuneera; Moore, Gemma; Carton, Michael; Fitzsimons, John J.; Henry, Colm; Flynn, Maureen A.; Health Service Executive

2023-03-14

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Outpatient elective induction of labour at 39 weeks' gestation (HOME INDUCTION): an open-label, randomised, controlled, phase III, non-inferiority trial.

Nicholson, Sarah; Flood, Karen; Dicker, Patrick; Molphy, Zara E; Smith, Orla T; Oprescu, Corina I; Wall, Eimear M; El Nimr, Sara N; Shanahan, Ita M; Kennedy, Bernard J; Daly, Ronan V; Gannon, Geraldine; Looi, Claudia; Fernandez, Elena; Malone, Fergal D

2024-07-17

Recent Submissions

  • PublicationOpen Access
    Psychiatric Considerations on Infanticide: Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater.
    (2020-09) Naviaux, Anne-Frederique; Janne, Pascal; Gourdin, Maximilien
    BACKGROUND: Infanticide is not a new concept. It is often confused with child murder, neonaticide, filicide or even genderside. Each of these concepts has to be defined clearly in order to be understood. Through time reasons for infanticide have evolved depending on multiple factors such as culture, religion, beliefs system, or attempts to control the population. It was once seen as a moral virtue. So what has changed? SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Between January 2020 and May 2020, a literature search based on electronic bibliographic databases as well as other sources of information (grey literature) was conducted in order to investigate the most recent data on infanticide and child murder, especially the newest socio-economic and psychiatric considerations as well as the different reasons why a mother or a father ends up killing their own child and the Irish situation. RESULTS: Recent works on the subject demonstrate how some new socio economic factors and family considerations impact on infanticide. Mental illness, especially depression and psychosis, is often part of the picture and represent a very high risk factor to commit infanticide and filicide. Fathers and mothers do not proceed the same way nor for the same reasons when they kill their offspring. Neonaticide and infanticide are almost always committed by women. A recent case in Ireland (2020) proves how filicide remains an actual problem. CONCLUSIONS: Filicide is a relatively rare event, and therefore particularly impact both the public and the press when it occurs. Infanticide does not result from a unique cause, but from multiple factors (some being well known, some remaining hypothetical). Psychopathological and socio-economical parameters associated to peculiar family grounds are currently prevalent. To help and prevent infanticide, screening for psychiatric disorders and risk factors and treating or offering assistance to parents at risk should be implemented.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    A comparison of electronic and paper versions of the Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment (Q-CN) screen.
    (2025-05-30) Xu, Yangfan; Yu, Jiadan; Mo, Xiaocong; Chen, Huiying; Shi, Le; Lee, Kathy Ys; Tong, Michael C-F; O'Caoimh, Rónán; Wang, Yuling
    BACKGROUND: There is a growing focus on digitalizing screening instruments for use on computerized, mobile devices. However, few studies have compared the performance of electronic and traditional 'pen and paper' formats. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare the performance of electronic and traditional 'pen and paper' formats of the Chinese version of Quick mild cognitive impairment screen (Q-CN) screen in adults. METHODS: A convenience sample of 86 adults aged 18 years were included. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups that underwent the eQ-CN and pQ-CN screens in counterbalanced order. Patients completed a questionnaire detailing their experiences and preferences. Total and subscale scores and administration times were recorded. RESULTS: A strong, statistically significant correlation ( = 0.77) was found between eQ-CN and pQ-CN scores for all participants. Analysis comparing the first administration only (eQ-CN versus pQ-CN) found no statistically significant difference in total scores, except for one subtest registration (p = 0.023), where participants scored lower on the eQ-CN. Administration times were similar, though the pQmci-CN was significantly shorter than eQmci-CN (287.41 s versus 302.78 s, respectively, p = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: The eQ-CN demonstrated strong correlation with the pQ-CN in this sample of Chinese adults. However, further research is required to examine these findings in a broader population to enhance the reliability and external validity of the results.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Prevention of adolescent stimulant drug use: Do the home life environment and extracurricular activities influence this? Findings from the Irish Planet Youth Survey.
    (2025-08-22) Daly, Fionn P; Millar, Seán R; Major, Emmet; Barrett, Peter M
    INTRODUCTION: Stimulant drug use during adolescence (e.g., cocaine or ecstasy) can lead to a myriad of adverse health effects, but it remains uncertain how the home life environment and involvement in structured extracurricular activities may correlate with teenage stimulant use. METHODS: We conducted an analysis utilising data from the 2020 Planet Youth survey, an anonymous questionnaire administered to school-going adolescents in the western region of Ireland. All adolescents with complete demographic information on age, gender and drug use were included in the analysis. Multivariable-adjusted logistic regression was used to explore factors associated with adolescent lifetime cocaine or ecstasy use. Exposure variables of interest were factors associated with the home environment (parental rule-setting, parental monitoring, being outside after midnight), mental health, intergenerational closure (defined as the extent of connectedness between adolescents and their peers, parents of their peers, and between parents themselves) and adolescent participation in extracurricular activities (sports, arts, volunteering, and/or afterschool clubs). Limitations of this study included its cross-sectional design which precluded causal inferences, self-reported data which may lead to information and social desirability biases, respectively, as well as adolescents who were not enrolled in formal education being excluded from the sampling frame. RESULTS: In total, 167 out of 4890 (3.4%) and 136 out of 4895 (2.8%) adolescents had previously used cocaine and ecstasy, respectively. Almost half of the participants in both datasets were female (49.7%), and the majority were aged 16 years (62.8% and 62.7% of the cocaine and ecstasy samples, respectively). Being outside after midnight during the previous week was associated with lifetime stimulant use (cocaine AOR = 5.63, 95%CI: 3.98,7.97; ecstasy AOR = 6.37, 95%CI: 4.36,9.30) (vs. never). Adolescents who reported "bad/very bad" mental health had over three times the odds of previous cocaine use (AOR = 3.63, 95%CI: 2.39, 5.49), and over five times the odds of previous ecstasy use (AOR = 5.15, 95%CI: 3.09, 8.59) (vs. "good/very good"). A lack of parental rule-setting (cocaine AOR = 1.28, 95%CI: 1.10, 1.50; ecstasy AOR = 1.39, 95%CI: 1.17,1.64), lack of parental monitoring (cocaine AOR = 1.81, 95%CI: 1.58,2.06; ecstasy AOR = 2.15, 95%CI: 1.86, 2.48), and reduced intergenerational closure (cocaine AOR = 1.37, 95%CI: 1.18,1.58; ecstasy AOR = 1.57, 95%CI: 1.34,1.83) were associated with lifetime stimulant use. Teenagers who did not participate regularly in sport had increased odds of previous cocaine use (in a club/team AOR = 1.50, 95%CI: 1.06,2.11; outside of a club/team AOR = 1.45, 95%CI: 1.03,2.04) and ecstasy use (in a club/team AOR = 1.54, 95%CI: 1.05,2.27; outside of a club/team AOR = 1.79, 95%CI: 1.56,3.12). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of stimulant use among this sample of Irish adolescents is relatively high by European standards, particularly cocaine use. Reduced parental rule-setting, supervision and family bonding time was associated with higher odds of adolescent stimulant use. Regular involvement in sports may have a protective effect against adolescent stimulant drug use.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Guidance on Quality and Safety Notifications Mental Health Commission
    (Mental Health Commission (MHC), 2024-08-25) Mental Health Commission (MHC); Mental Health Commission (MHC)
  • PublicationOpen Access
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