{"doi":"10.1016/j.ijans.2025.100876","title":"Developing a Digital Community of Practice to address professional isolation among emergency nurses in Lesotho","abstract":"Introduction Professional isolation is a deficiency in one’s network of professional relations and is associated with compromised health service delivery and quality of life among health professionals, working in low-resource environments. Aim This paper describes the design process undertaken to develop a Digital Community of Practice (DCOP) to address professional isolation among emergency nurses in Lesotho. Method This study is part of a larger, four-cycle collaborative action research project aimed at developing an intervention to manage professional isolation among emergency nurses in low-resource environments. Guided by the Communities of Practice Model’s five-phased life cycle, a Digital Community of Practice was developed. In Cycle One, a needs assessment was conducted through a scoping review and five focus group discussions. Cycle Two involved 13 individual interviews to explore perceptions of professional isolation. In Cycle Three, the research team concluded that a Digital Community of Practice could effectively manage professional isolation among emergency nurses in Lesotho. Results The preliminary results from the evaluation of the implementation of a digital community of practice show that it was functional, highlighting mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire. These results show how a digital community of practice enabled Emergency Nurses to gradually implement a change in practice; as well as to recognize and minimize professional isolation among themselves. Conclusion Combining results from Cycles One and Two, the research team developed and implemented a Digital Community of Practice. The results show that a Digital Community of Practice using WhatsApp may be a useful intervention strategy for managing professional isolation with emergency nurses in marginalised areas.","journal":"International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences","year":2025,"id":571136,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9547,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1099222,"name":"Tricia Scott","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":385778,"name":"Petra Brysiewicz","orcid":"0000-0001-6258-1603","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1098834,"name":"Mahlomola Kutoane","orcid":"0000-0001-7724-3543","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":32,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:57:15.755535Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}