Nursing Students

In today's litigious environment, nurse educators must understand the legal issues involved in determining grades and deciding academic progression. Although the courts have consistently ruled that educators are the most qualified people to evaluate what constitutes academic success, the potential remains for students to legally challenge their grades. This article reviews legal cases and shows the change in the studentinstitution relationship from one of a child-surrogate parent (in loco parentis) to one in which students' rights and institutional responsibility are balanced. The courts continue to support the concept that educators are uniquely qualified to make determinations concerning grading and progression and defer to decisions made by the academic community. However, a series of legal decisions based on due process and contract law now protects students from arbitrary and capricious decisions made without a formal grievance process. The implications for nurse educators and administrators are far-reaching and include such issues as specific policies within syllabi, divisional policies, institutional policies, and adherence to formal grievance procedures. (

In recent years mature students have been encouraged into nurse education for the valuable qualities they are known to possess, along with their ability to assist in providing a sustainable solution to the current health care crisis. Unfortunately corresponding resources and ...

Aim. To identify predictors of successful transition from undergraduate student to registered nurse and to identify whether any particular pre-registration paid employment choice impacted on transition. Background. Nursing students in Australia and internationally, engage in a variety of paid employment whilst completing their university studies. However, there is little empirical evidence about the different types of employment chosen by students and any relationship to graduate nurse transition. Design. A descriptive questionnaire survey. Method. This cross-sectional study was conducted with newly graduated nurses throughout Australia. The survey data were collected over 4 months in 2011, with 392 registered nurses completing a questionnaire. Results. Respondents were categorized into four groups, according to their chosen work type (hospitality/retail, enrolled nurse, other healthcare worker, and non-worker) and transition scores were identified. Transition scores were significantly higher for undergraduates who were employed compared with non-workers. Postregistration institutional work factors appeared to be stronger predictors of successful transition than pre-registration employment factors. Assistance in dealing with complex patients, orientation to a new environment, and respect from colleagues were the best predictors for successful transition. Conclusions. Engaging in some form of paid employment in the final year of undergraduate university study is beneficial. However, it is not pre-registration employment choice per se that is the best predictor of successful transition, but the influence of work factors which new graduates experience in their first year of practice.

Our country's rapidly growing older adult population represents the core business of health care; however, few nurses are adequately prepared to care for their unique needs. This is caused, in part, by the limited attention paid by nursing educators to incorporating basic gerontological nursing principles into undergraduate programs. During the last 7 years, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, through the generous support of the John A. Hartford Foundation, has led several initiatives to improve gerontological nursing education in baccalaureate programs. This article describes innovative educational strategies successfully implemented by three nursing programs-New York University, Tuskegee University, and University of Rhode Island-to increase knowledge and improve attitudes of nursing students in caring for older adults. Successful strategies include a long-term care guide, a senior mentor experience, student assignments addressing diversity issues, student debates, critical reflective journalizing, and an evaluation tool for measuring student attitudes. These strategies are readily reproducible and assist faculty to easily integrate gerontological nursing content into the curriculum while simultaneously enhancing student attitudes and knowledge. (Index words: Student attitudes; Health care; Nursing education; Older adults) J Prof Nurs 22: 91-97, 2006.

Evidence suggests that student nurses need to share their personal responses to practice by describing their feelings and experiences. These experiences are often accompanied by a degree of stress. Whilst reflection may enhance students' learning in practice there is little evidence to support the degree of support they may obtain from this process.

Aim: To explore graduating nursing students' perception of nurse educators' teaching of codes of ethics in polytechnics providing basic nursing education in Finland. Background: Codes of ethics are regarded as an essential content in most nursing ethics curricula. However, little is known about how their teaching is implemented. Methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional design was used in this study. A total of 214 nursing students responded to a structured questionnaire with one open-ended question. The data was analysed statistically by SPSS and content analysis. Findings: Students perceived teaching of the codes as fairly extensive. The emphasis was on the nurse-patient relationship. Less attention was paid to nursing in wider social contexts. Educators' use of teaching and evaluation methods was narrow. Students whose teaching had been integrated into clinical training perceived that teaching had been more extensive. However, students did not perceive integration to clinical training as a much used teaching format. Students assessed their own knowledge and ability to apply the codes as mediocre. Those educators, whose knowledge about the codes students had assessed as adequate, were also perceived to teach the codes more extensively. Conclusions: Regardless of the responding students' positive description of the teaching, the findings should be interpreted with caution, due to the students' limited interest to respond. In teaching ethics, particular attention should be paid to more versatile use of teaching and evaluation methods, organization of integrated teaching, educators' competence in ethics, and student outcomes so that the importance of ethics would come across to all nursing students.

The aim of this study was to explore the motivations of student nurses enrolled in nursing courses across a variety of Pacific Island countries. The image of nursing, the desire to help others, family and friends in the profession, personal experience, security, travel opportunities and flexibility have all been identified as motivators for people to enter nursing. To date, what motivates students in Pacific Island countries to enrol in a nursing course has not been investigated. An exploratory qualitative approach using focus group interviews with 152 nursing students was undertaken. Data were analysed using thematic content analysis, revealing four themes: (i) helping others; (ii) 'making a difference for my people'; (iii) following in the footsteps of others; and (iv) financial and professional gain. In a time of health and nursing workforce shortages, developing a deeper understanding of what drives people can be used to improve recruitment strategies in the future.

Since there are a variety of communication barriers in health care settings in Japan, a study was designed to improve communication by the use of graphic symbols. At the beginning of this study, graphic symbols were developed to correspond to 26 basic symptoms. Seventy-six subjects voluntarily evaluated the comprehensibility of these symbols: nursing students (n = 29), manual sign language interpreters (n = 24), hearing impaired subjects with normal (n =10), limited (n =11), and minimal (n = 2) literacy abilities. The comprehension by each respondent of each symbol was compared with that of the authors. On the average, numbers of the matching meanings were 24.9±1.36 (mean ±s.n.) for students, 24.5± 1.77 for interpreters, 23.4± 2.22, and 21.5± 3.01 for the first two groups of the hearing impaired. Among the 26 symbols, 10 showed high levels of the matching rates (>90%) for all groups. These symbols were considered to be effective alternatives to verbal expression. Further refinements of the graphic symbols were suggested to suppress the differences in interpretation of the remainder of the symbols. During this study, colleagues and subjects suggested cognitive strategies to clarify and enhance the meaning of the graphic symbols such as (a) the subtraction of excessive information, (b) the addition of further information, and (c) the simplification of the setting by minimizing social and cultural bias. communication barriers; communication aids; professional-patient relations; visual symbols; deafness Verbal appearance expression of is usually the unusual changes of bodily sensation, function, and first step of communication in health-care settings

Tools to evaluate clinical coursework with community groups for basic baccalaureate students are limited and often have not been sufficiently validated. This study developed and tested 2 tools. The initial phase of development involved identifying expected outcomes for clinical course work and specific tool items from 2 sources of information: (a) U.S. and Canadian policy documents on public health and community health nursing and (b) themes and skills identified as important or satisfying by nursing students during their clinical coursework. The tools were then tested for reliability and validity with subsequent classes of students using predefined criteria. The tool ''Confidence in Using Public Health Nursing Skills'' was developed from 2 sources: the themes and skills identified as important by students and beginning practice expectations identified from policy documents. The tool ''Satisfaction With Team Projects'' was developed from student responses to questions on satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Both tools were found to be reliable in terms of internal consistency reliability and valid in terms of content and structure. The tool or the process to develop the tool will be useful for designing and evaluating appropriate clinical education.

Background: The Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) have a considerable socio economic impact. First, they drive up costs for workers, companies, and society in general. This applies to both direct and indirect costs associated with occupational diseases and industrial accidents. Nursing students experienced the MSD with increased cases amongst nursing staff. Nursing students continue to face the problems of MSD due to the misuse of the good technique to protect them self during clinical training hours. The study aimed to assess work-related musculoskeletal disorders among nursing students during clinical training. A cross-sectional study design used to achieve this aim. Convenience sampling technique was used to include all consenting nursing students from fifth level to eighth level (3rd and 4th year) (n=253) student who were having clinical training. The study took place at the Faculty of Nursing, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University. The first part include demographic data questions. The second part is a self-reported pain using standardized Nordic questionnaire for the analysis of musculoskeletal symptoms that will assess different body parts namely upper limb, lower limb, and trunk sections of the body. The study illustrated that more than half of students reported pain (71.1%) and ankle or feet (43.9%) during the last 12 months. Consistent also with students who reported MSD in the last seven days, 48.2% of them reported lower back problem. There is significant relationship between number of clinical days (p = 0.05) and MSD, and no significant relationship between the MSDs and the number of the clinical hours per day (p =0.973), weight (p = 0.806). The main conclusion drawn from the current study is that the majority of nursing students are high risk for MSDs due to improper body mechanics or wrong posture.

Background: Practical hands-on learning opportunities are viewed as a vital component of the education of health science students, but there is a critical shortage of fieldwork placement experiences. It is therefore important that these clinical learning environments are well suited to students' perceptions and expectations. Purpose: To investigate how undergraduate students enrolled in health-related education programs view their clinical learning environments and specifically to compare students' perception of their 'actual' clinical learning environment to that of their 'preferred/ideal' clinical learning environment. Method: The Clinical Learning Environment Inventory (CLEI) was used to collect data from 548 undergraduate students (55% response rate) enrolled in all year levels of paramedics, midwifery, radiography and medical imaging, occupational therapy, pharmacy, nutrition and dietetics, physiotherapy and social work at Monash University via convenience sampling. Students were asked to rate their perception of the clinical learning environment at the completion of their placements using the CLEI. Results: Satisfaction of the students enrolled in the health-related disciplines was closely linked with the five constructs measured by the CLEI: Personalization, Student Involvement, Task Orientation, Innovation, and Individualization. Significant differences were found between the student's perception of their 'actual' clinical learning environment and their 'ideal' clinical learning environment. Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of a supportive clinical learning environment that places emphasis on effective two-way communication. A thorough understanding of students' perceptions of their clinical learning environments is essential.

The concepts of causation and prediction are different, and have different implications for practice. This distinction is applied here to studies of the problem of student attrition (although it is more widely applicable). Studies of attrition from nursing courses have tended to concentrate on causation, trying, largely unsuccessfully, to elicit what causes drop out. However, the problem may more fruitfully be cast in terms of predicting who is likely to drop out. One powerful method for attempting to make predictions is rule induction. This paper reports the use of the Answer Tree package from SPSS for that purpose. The main data set consisted of 3978 records on 528 nursing students, split into a training set and a test set. The source was standard university student records. The method obtained 84% sensitivity, 70% specificity, and 94% accuracy on previously unseen cases. The method requires large amounts of high quality data. When such data are available, rule induction offers a ...

This research was part of a Health Canada funded initiative developed to provide evidence about the effectiveness of interprofessional education (IPE) interventions to promote collaborative patient-centred care. Health professional students' ratings of health professions and the effect of IPE on those ratings were examined. Participants were divided into three groups (N= 51); control, education, and practice site immersion. Utilizing the Student Stereotypes Rating Questionnaire (SSRQ) which consists of a five point Likert-type scale each group rated health professionals on nine characteristics: academic ability, interpersonal skills, professional competence, leadership, practical skills, independence, confidence, decision-making, and being a team player (Hean, Macleod-Clark, Adams, and Humphris, 2006). Data were collected at four time points; prior to an IPE classroom intervention, following an IPE classroom intervention, following the IPE immersion experience, and four months post IPE immersion experience. Overall, perceptions of other health professions were more positive following the 2.5 day interprofessional education session and immersion experience. Student ratings of the seven professions among the nine characteristics will be presented, highlighting similarities and differences across professional groups. Findings support the incorporation of IPE curricula that address the role and functions of other health care professions to facilitate the development collaborative patient-centred care health care teams.

Stigma has a significant impact on the diagnosis of a variety of illnesses, patients' compliance with treatment and their recovery from these diseases. However, the Indian medical and nursing curriculum has given relatively little attention to recognising and addressing the issue of stigma. This study compared the perception of stigma with respect to tuberculosis (TB) and diabetes mellitus (DM) among medical and nursing students to that among patients with these diseases. The Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC) questionnaire was used for all patients and student groups. Focus group discussions were held with only the students to understand their concept of stigma and the challenges they face while addressing stigma, and to explore their role in addressing stigma. The data showed that patients with TB prefer not to disclose their illness, while DM is not perceived of as stigmatising by patients. As a group, medical and nursing students attached excessive stigma to patien...

ABSTRACT A new RN/BSN nursing program offers rural students in a western state the opportunity to address significant health care needs on a local level by developing public health leadership competencies in their home communities. The innovative program, funded by a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, makes it possible for RNs to complete their BSN degrees without travel, as they position themselves to provide critically needed health care leadership in their local areas. Partnerships between the university, community colleges, and local health agencies allow students in the RN-to-BSN program to benefit from a streamlined BSN admission process, onsite mentoring, and newly developed courses that lead students to reflect on health needs in their home communities. On the basis of Public Health Nursing Competencies as defined by the Nursing Quad Council (2004), the re-designed curriculum prepares students for public health leadership by encouraging application of competencies while participating in the delivery of essential public health services in their communities. Initial response to this new opportunity indicates that students can develop as leaders by developing public health competencies, and facets of the program may encourage more students to commit to completing the BSN while increasing capacity among PHNs.

Background: Italian Nursing Faculties use a range of tutorial strategies (laboratory sessions, intensive clinical tutoring, weekly tutoring) aimed to enhance nursing students' diagnostic reasoning: these strategies have different impacts on promoting student critical thinking. By using critical thinking methods, students develop abilities to check, monitor and constantly evaluate the accuracy of the diagnostic reasoning process. However, there is little evidence to show how effective tutorial strategies are on the accuracy of diagnostic reasoning. There is also very little known about the complexity of tutorial strategies because these are made up of several components (e.g. tutor questioning abilities, the value of the setting, the impact of the environment, the expertise of the tutor and the impact of the Faculty's philosophy of learning), tutorial strategies cannot be standardised and depend on multiple factors which are difficult to control. Objectives: The objective was to establish a relationship between tutorial strategies orientated to enhance critical thinking and the accuracy of diagnostic reasoning (i.e. the number of correct answers given by students on simulated cases in two different nursing education contexts). It was hypothesised that students who had had one laboratory session using intensive tutorial strategies had less probability of making reasoning errors in diagnosing a simulated case than a control group that had weekly tutorials or routine tutoring. Design: A double pragmatic experimental study was adopted involving two Italian Nursing Faculties at universities in Verona and Udine. Participants: A total of 144 students in the first year of their Nursing Science Degree course were involved; in Verona, two random groups of 41students were taken (an intervention group and a control group). Random selections of 39 students for the intervention group and 29 students for a control group were made from the second campus in Udine. Data analysis was conducted comparing student outcomes in the same faculty (intra-trial analysis) and between the two campuses involved (inter-trial analysis).

The aim of this paper was to systematically review evidence about nursing and midwifery students' encounters with poor clinical care. We undertook a systematic review of English language empirical research using multiple databases from inception to April 2016. Hand searching was also undertaken. Included papers contained accounts of empirical research which reported on students' encounters with poor care. These were quality-assessed, information was extracted into tables, and study results were synthesized using thematic analysis. N = 14 papers met inclusion criteria; study quality was moderate to good. Study synthesis revealed four themes: i) encounters with poor practice: students encounter poor practice that is likely to be worthy of professional sanction; ii) while intention to report is high in hypothetical scenarios, this appears not always to translate to actual practice; iii) a range of influencing factors impact the likelihood of reporting; iv) the consequences of e...

Introduction. Care is seen as something that is peculiar to the medical sciences but its meaning and status for physicians and nurses differs. Objectives. The aim of this research was to learn how nursing and medical students understand and define care, and how their definition and views on their practice of caring change as they advance through their studies. Material and methods. The study was conducted among two groups of students: before and after their first practicum (n=102). Analysis of the students' answers was carried out using Colaizzi's phenomenological descriptive methodology, which means that a qualitative approach was used. Results. The qualitative analysis shows that the medical and nursing students define care in the same way, using 9 main categories: compassion, commitment, competence, confidence, conscience, communication, patience, courage and support. The nursing students viewed their caring to be within both practical and emotional dimensions and this was a core feature of their identity as nurses. Medical students, on the other hand, viewed the practical dimension of care as an additional activity. All the students in the study underlined the importance of having time to care and showed that, for them, 'time' in this context has a moral meaning. What was interesting to the research team centered on the initial attitudes to 'caring' from both medical and nursing students. Conclusions. We found that students of both nursing and medicine do not begin their studies with different attitudes and concepts of care. However, after their initial exposure to practical placements a process begins which forges different identities around the concept of care. This implies trends in the division of professional roles during their initial education.

This study's objective was to evaluate the effect of an assertiveness training program on nursing and medical students' assertiveness, self-esteem, and interpersonal communication satisfaction. Using a longitudinal research design, 69 participants whose scores on the Assertive Scale were 650% (i.e., low assertiveness) and who were willing to participate were included and assigned to an experimental group (33 subjects) or comparison group (36 participants; participants were matched with the experimental group by grade and sex). Participants in the experimental group received eight 2-h sessions of assertiveness training once a week. Data were collected before and after training and again one month after the end of the training using the Rotter's Internal versus External Control of Reinforcement Scale, Sex Role Inventory, Assertive Scale, Esteem Scale, and Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction Inventory. The generalized estimated equation (GEE) method was used for statistical analysis. The assertiveness and self-esteem of the experimental group were significantly improved in nursing and medical students after

The use of simulation as a teaching strategy in undergraduate nursing education is gaining increasing credibility and popularity. This article describes a study undertaken to evaluate first-year undergraduate nursing students' level of satisfaction with a new model of teaching clinical skills using unfolding case studies in a high-fidelity simulated clinical setting. The design incorporated a case study design conducted over 4 Â 6 h simulation sessions. Participants included 47 first year Bachelor of Nursing Science students, three academic staff and two standardised patients. Findings from the study provide qualitative and quantitative evidence to support a high fidelity simulated model of teaching clinical skills development for first year undergraduate nursing students. High positive scores in all sections of the student survey provide quantitative evidence of student's satisfaction with all elements of the teaching model and qualitative data from interviews supporting this claim. Additionally, analysis of interview data provides qualitative evidence to support the value of the learning experience for students and academics, and students desire to participate more frequently in simulation sessions.

Numerous articles describe barriers to nurses conducting research and achieving evidence-based practice as well as strategies for overcoming barriers. The Research Roundtable format is one such strategy. It is an interactive means for providing novice nurse researchers and nursing students with the skill sets required to drive application of existing evidence to nursing practice and conduct outcome studies to derive new evidence. The authors discuss their Research Roundtable series that addressed a number of barriers to research, research utilization, and evidence-based practice and how the series increased nurses knowledge and skills, demystified the research process, provided role models, demonstrated managerial and collegial support, and provided library, fiscal, and other resource support to complete staff projects. The details of the Research Roundtable series will guide others in replicating the process in their own organizations and academic communities.

The growth of accelerated graduate entry nursing programs has challenged traditional approaches to teaching and learning. To date, limited research has been undertaken in the role of learning preferences, language proficiency and academic performance in accelerated programs. Sixty-two first year accelerated graduate entry nursing students, in a single cohort at a university in the western region of Sydney, Australia, were surveyed to assess their learning preference using the Visual, Aural, Read/write and Kinaesthetic (VARK) learning preference questionnaire, together with sociodemographic data, English language acculturation and perceived academic control. Six months following course commencement, the participant's grade point average (GPA) was studied as a measurement of academic performance. A 93% response rate was achieved. The majority of students (62%) reported preference for multiple approaches to learning with the kinaesthetic sensory mode a significant (p = 0.009) predictor of academic performance. Students who spoke only English at home had higher mean scores across two of the four categories of VARK sensory modalities, visual and kinaesthetic compared to those who spoke non-English. Further research is warranted to investigate the reasons why the kinaesthetic sensory mode is a predictor of academic performance and to what extent the VARK mean scores of the four learning preference(s) change with improved English language proficiency.

Aims: The study examined the effects of brief monthly practice on nursing students' CPR psychomotor skill performance at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months compared to a control group with no practice, and of repeating the initial BLS course at 12 months. Methods: Nursing students (n = 606) completed either HeartCode TM BLS or an instructor-led course and were then randomly assigned to an intervention group practice schedule, consisting of experimental (6 min of monthly practice on a voice advisory manikin) or control (no practice) and test out month. Every 3 months, a subset of students was randomly selected from both groups for reassessment of their CPR psychomotor skills. Outcome measures were compression rate and depth, percent of compressions performed with adequate depth, percent performed with correct hand placement, ventilation rate and volume, and percent of ventilations with adequate volume. Results: At 3 months, there were no differences between the groups in mean ventilation volume (p = 0.71), but with practice by 6 months students were able to ventilate with an adequate volume; this skill continued to improve with monthly practice. In the control group, the mean ventilation volumes were less than the recommended minimum throughout the 12 months. The control group had a significant loss of ability to compress with adequate depth between 9 and 12 months (p = 0.004). By practicing only 6 min a month, students maintained or improved their CPR skills over the 12-month period. Conclusion: The findings confirmed the importance of practicing CPR psychomotor skills to retain them and also revealed that short monthly practices could improve skills over baseline.

Objective: The aim of this research is to examine the effect of inter-model expressive group art therapy on the final year nursing students" level of overcoming stress. Method: This study was designed as an experiential research with randomization technique in the type of pre-test and final test. It was carried out with sixteen participants (eight participants, eight control group members) who were last grade nursery students in a foundation university"s faculty of health sciences in 2015-2016 academic year. The researcher collected the data using a Personal Information Form, Turkish Adaptation of Perceived Stress Scale, Bio-psycho-social Response, and Coping Behaviors of Stress Scales for Nursing Students, Ways of Coping Inventory (WCI), The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI 1-2) and art pieces produced in sessions, oral expressions of participants, observations of the workshop leader and supervision reports. These scales were analyzed with " Results: When the point averages taken by participants from scales were examined, a statistically significant positive relation (on the level of 72,4%) was found between beginning stress sub-dimension points caused by instructors and nurses with social support application sub-dimension points in the experimental group according to the beginning evaluation of correlation between sub-dimension points of PSSNS and those of WCI (r: 0.724; p<0.05). When correlation between WCI sub-dimension points and STAI 1-2 sub-dimension points was evaluated, a statistically significant and positive relation on a level of 71,2% between social support application beginning sub-dimension points and trait anxiety sub-dimension points (r:0.712; p<0.05); and another statistically significant and positive relation on a level of 70.4% between optimistic approach beginning sub-dimension points and state anxiety sub-dimension points were found in the experimental group (r:0.704; p<0.05). Conclusion: This study is thought to have helped participants about defining their stressors, realizing, expressing and explaining their own feelings; empowered in-group communication; and supported creative and critical thinking giving a new perspective to participants. On the basis of this result, forming large sample groups and long-term studies must be supported.

Background: The main goal of nursing profession is to provide people's health that cannot be achieved only through the use of scientific methods, and it is essential to pay special attention to spirituality and ethics for its attainment. The current study aimed at determining the effect of spirituality training on the moral sensitivity of nursing students.

The purpose of this study was to compare gender-based differences in levels of role strain and related attitudes among nursing students and to examine factors associated with role strain experienced by students during obstetric practice. A cross-sectional survey was used on a sample of 95 female and 55 male baccalaureate nursing students who had completed their obstetric practice at one of two universities in central Taiwan. Results showed role strain in male nursing students to be significantly higher than that in female nursing students, especially in terms of role incongruity. The attitude of male nursing students toward clinical instructors, healthcare providers, and clients and their families and the stereotyped viewpoint about the gender role and occupation were all significantly higher than those of their female counterparts. Most variance (57.3%) in role strain in male nursing students was explained by attitude toward clinical instructors, attitude toward clients with their families, a lack of interest in nursing, and attitude toward healthcare providers. By way of comparison, attitude toward clinical instructors, attitude toward clients and their families, and attitude toward healthcare providers explained 30.1% of the variance of role strain in female nursing students. Results of this study may enhance understanding of the experiences of nursing students in obstetric practice and serve as a reference for nursing educators on curriculum development and clinical instruction.

Aim: To explore the appropriateness of clinical academic coaching role as a tool for enhancing student learning and the development of advanced academic and clinical practice skills for nurses. Background: Coaching involves a relationship between individuals characterised by analyzing and communicating mutually understood objectives and motivating others. Coaching is beneficial for developing those entering new positions with higher level responsibilities. Method: A two stage evaluation involved analysis of structured questionnaires distributed to students registered for a postgraduate advanced clinical practice programme and ten interviews with students and coaches. Data was analysed to develop understanding of how coaches were experienced by students as an aid to learning. Findings: Data indicates the role supported students through transition and provided learning support at crucial times in the academic journey. Specific skills and behaviours enhanced the coach-student relationship. The coach's understanding of the clinical context was pivotal, as was effective preparation to undertake the coaching role. Conclusion: Supporting students to make the transition into advanced practice roles is a prominent issue within current healthcare literature. Clinical coaching enhances learning through a strong and coherent partnership between the student, their practice context and the academic journey.

Development through self-assessment: strategies used during clinical nursing placements The question asked for this small research project was 'how do senior students judge their progress towards being a ''good nurse''?' A qualitative approach was taken and a convenience sample of 10 student midwives identified. Interviews were the main source of data collection. Since the method of analysis was that of grounded theory, the interviews became more focused as themes emerged. Results demonstrated that each student developed a range of self-assessment strategies which were used in any clinical placement. Some techniques were used only at a certain stage in a clinical placement while others were used throughout. Cyclical techniques were related to the achievement of short-term goals; strategies used for the duration of the placement had more long-term significance. Highlights of the findings were explored in the literature. These features included models of professional development, the need to feel part of a team, the necessity of identifying a role model, and the significance of the length of a clinical placement. Conclusions related to the duration of a clinical placement and the necessity for the student to have the opportunity to complete the cycle. The value of acquainting new students with self-assessment strategies is suggested.

Universities need to ensure that clinical undergraduates are educated in the use of computers in medical, nursing, dental and veterinary practice. We surveyed 875 students at Glasgow University to determine their computer literacy and attitudes to the use of computers.

Pain is a common problem for many older adults, with up to 50% of community-dwelling and 70% to 80% of nursing home residents experiencing pain regularly. Effective pain management requires thorough assessment, appropriate intervention, and systematic reassessment. Pain assessment, however, is complicated by dementia, which impairs memory, reasoning, recognition, and communication, and affects elders' ability to verbally report pain. As such, observational measures are needed to assess pain in this vulnerable population. The Noncommunicative Patient's Pain Assessment Instrument (NOPPAIN) was developed for this purpose, but more validation of this measure is needed. Thus, the purpose of this study was to (1) evaluate reliability of the NOPPAIN tool when used by nurses and to (2) compare NOPPAIN ratings with self-report and other well-established behavioral rating procedures. Forty participants (20 cognitively intact and 20 impaired) were randomly selected for this study from a larger sample. In the parent study, participants were asked to perform everyday activities (i.e., sit, stand, walk in place, transfer in and out of bed) while being videotaped. The tapes, all previously scored using microanalytic observational coding, were rated again by naïve raters using the NOPPAIN measure. Results indicated (1) high inter-and intrarater reliability of the NOPPAIN and (2) significant correlations of the NOPPAIN with self-reported pain and detailed behavioral coding. Findings support the reliability and validity of the NOPPAIN measure-

Université de Sherbrooke 3001, 12e Av. Nord, Sherbrooke Québec, Canada J1H 5N4 s u m m a r y Purpose: This article presents the findings of a doctoral study about the internal and external resources required to develop nursing informatics competencies in student nurses. Background: Colleges and universities are responsible for training nursing students, including in the area of nursing informatics. Even though nursing informatics is a specialty recognized by the American Nursing Association , it has received limited attention in Quebec, Canada. Method: A total of 131 college-level nursing students were randomly surveyed with a mail questionnaire designed to describe their perceptions about their internal and external resources in nursing informatics. Results: Nursing students perceive that their internal and external resources necessary to ensure "knowledge to act" in nursing informatics is moderately high. They said they lacked knowledge about using spreadsheet programs, presentation software, and courseware, about data security, and about how to analyze the quality of a health-related Web site and search electronic scientific databases. Conclusion: These results show that, even if nursing students have access to a computer and the Internet at home and even if they feel competent using informatics in nursing, they still lack important resources for developing competencies in nursing informatics. We recommend that faculties and colleges focus on these elements.

Background: Stress is a feature of the life of nursing students and this had been well studied. However, there are very few instruments to measure stress in nursing students specifically. One such instrument, the Stressors in Nursing Students Scale has been developed in Scotland and applied in studies in Hong Kong and Australia and proved useful alongside other measures of individual differences and psychological distress. Objectives: To translate the Stressors in Nursing Students Scale into Chinese, test it with Chinese nursing students and explore the psychometric structure of stress in this population. Design: Cross-sectional survey using a self-administered questionnaire. Setting: A large teaching hospital in Southwest Mainland China. Participants: Nursing students (n= 1090) participated (1000 in the classroom and 90 on clinical placement); 862 from the classroom and 79 from clinical placements returned questionnaires (n = 914) representing a return rate of 86.3%. Methods: Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling. Results: A four-factor structure was obtained from principal component analysis. This was confirmed (fit indices > 0.9 and RMSEA b 0.06) using structural equation modelling. The stress-related factors were: Clinical (0.83), Finance (0.81), Confidence (0.82), and Education (0.70).

jimenez c., navia-osorio p.m. & diaz c.v. (2010) Stress and health in novice and experienced nursing students. Journal of Advanced Nursing66(2), 442–455.jimenez c., navia-osorio p.m. & diaz c.v. (2010) Stress and health in novice and experienced nursing students. Journal of Advanced Nursing66(2), 442–455.AbstractTitle. Stress and health in novice and experienced nursing studentsAim.  This paper is a report of a study conducted to identify the differences in novice and experienced nursing students’ reports of stress and health.Background.  Stress from clinical practice and its impact are international yet culturally mediated phenomena. Nursing students are under considerable stress during clinical practice periods, putting their education and health at risk. However, there is little or no empirical evidence about the stress suffered by nursing students and its impact on their health throughout clinical practice.Methods.  We performed cross-sectional research using standard information gathering tools. This study was carried out with 357 students from all 3 years of a nursing diploma programme at a Spanish nursing college (71% response rate). The data were collected over an 8-month period in 2004–2005.Findings.  We identified three types of stressors (clinical, academic and external) and two categories of symptoms (physiological and psychological) linked to clinical practice. Factor analysis identified six major sources of stress and six important symptoms. Students perceived clinical stressors more intensely than academic and external stressors, and showed psychological symptoms more frequently than physiological symptoms. Nursing students from all 3 years perceived moderate stress at similar levels. Experienced students perceived more academic stressors than novices. Although the students were healthy, second year students were the most vulnerable to somatic and psychic anxiety, and common symptoms.Conclusion.  We suggest informing students about possible stressors associated with their profession, and introducing interventions to support development of professionalism, social skills and coping capacity for clinical practice.Title. Stress and health in novice and experienced nursing studentsAim.  This paper is a report of a study conducted to identify the differences in novice and experienced nursing students’ reports of stress and health.Background.  Stress from clinical practice and its impact are international yet culturally mediated phenomena. Nursing students are under considerable stress during clinical practice periods, putting their education and health at risk. However, there is little or no empirical evidence about the stress suffered by nursing students and its impact on their health throughout clinical practice.Methods.  We performed cross-sectional research using standard information gathering tools. This study was carried out with 357 students from all 3 years of a nursing diploma programme at a Spanish nursing college (71% response rate). The data were collected over an 8-month period in 2004–2005.Findings.  We identified three types of stressors (clinical, academic and external) and two categories of symptoms (physiological and psychological) linked to clinical practice. Factor analysis identified six major sources of stress and six important symptoms. Students perceived clinical stressors more intensely than academic and external stressors, and showed psychological symptoms more frequently than physiological symptoms. Nursing students from all 3 years perceived moderate stress at similar levels. Experienced students perceived more academic stressors than novices. Although the students were healthy, second year students were the most vulnerable to somatic and psychic anxiety, and common symptoms.Conclusion.  We suggest informing students about possible stressors associated with their profession, and introducing interventions to support development of professionalism, social skills and coping capacity for clinical practice.

Aims and objectives. The purpose of this integrative review of the literature was to find and review international research studies that explored student attrition to determine what is known about the topic and to identify gaps in the research with a view to addressing the situation in the UK. Background. Attrition from nursing programmes is a serious problem in the UK. It is recognised as a complex phenomenon, not attributable to a single cause. Regardless of actual attrition rates and trends, departments of nursing are challenged to perform in a business-like manner. Consequently, every student lost to a programme of study equates to a financial penalty for the department and to the future workforce and community. Design. Integrative review of the literature. Method. Using electronic databases and specific search terms, 18 articles were identified and reviewed. Findings from the identified international research literature were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results. Four broad themes that accounted for factors of relevance to attrition were identified: Social, Prediction, Programme and Personal.

For several decades now the World Health Organization has indicated the need for a reorientation of the health services away from focusing solely on illness and disease to one that considers both disease prevention and health promotion. Successive publications that guide public health policy both nationally and internationally reiterate the need for health promotion and the principles of health for all to become integral to the fabric of health care delivery. The role of the nurse as health promoters is well recognized. However despite acknowledgement by professional nursing bodies and nurse educators that health promotion forms a central tenet of undergraduate nurse education curricula, there are varied approaches to teaching and learning and little formal evaluation of the consequences of approaches taken. The aims of this study are to identify current health promotion curricular content within the Irish undergraduate nursing programme context; to measure nursing students' attitudes towards health promotion and to examine nursing students' reported lifestyle behaviours.

s u m m a r y Background: Pressure ulcers still remain a significant problem in many healthcare settings. Poor knowledge and negative attitudes toward pressure ulcer prevention could undesirably affect preventive care strategies. Objective: To assess both knowledge and attitudes among nursing students on Pressure Ulcer Prevention Evidence-Based Guidelines. Design: A multicenter cross-sectional survey was carried out from December 2012 to August 2013. Settings: The study was carried out in seven Italian nursing schools. Participants: We involved a convenience sample of nursing students (n = 742) Methods: Data were collected using two validated questionnaires to assess students' knowledge and attitudes on pressure ulcer prevention. Results: The overall Knowledge and Attitude scores were 51.1% (13.3/26) and 76.7% (39.9/52), respectively. We found a weak correlation between total Knowledge scores and total Attitude scores (rho = 0.13, p b 0.001). We also observed that nursing students' year of education, training experience and number of department frequented during their clinical placement were significantly related to both the Knowledge and the Attitude total scores (p b 0.05). Conclusions: Nursing students' knowledge on pressure ulcer prevention was relatively low. However, we observed an association between a high level of education/training experience and higher knowledge scores. Most of the participants showed high attitude scores. These results suggest that positive attitudes toward pressure ulcer prevention may contribute to the compliance with the guidelines in clinical practice.

Overview: Since the mid-90s, the university environment has challenged the motivation of academic staff to engage in pastoral care. A literature review revealed five themes that aligned with analysis of interview data from a previous study . The key themes were i) staff were often disturbed by unplanned intrusions of students who exhibited behavioural problems or sought emotional support, ii) the management of emotions in face-to-face encounters was stressful, iii) staff felt under-equipped for dealing with Mental Health (MH) issues, iv) standards and control needed updating and v) counselling and disability services did not meet academics' need to know about 'at risk' students. Objective: Having identified the incidence of mental health issues among Australian University students, this study aims to locate literature that describes how well current university policies/protocols are supported by Evidence Based Practice in the management of MH problems in the student population. Design/setting/participants: Findings from a content analysis of the literature were triangulated with verbatim comments recorded during a previous study that utilised semi structured interviews with 34 academics at the School of Nursing and Midwifery and the School of Commerce at the University of South Australia (Laws and Fiedler, 2010). Results: Lack of clarity on role boundaries around promotion of students' well-being was not clearly defined. The Higher Education (HE) institutions' slowness in responding to mental health needs of students combined with the increasing expectations of academics' performance monitoring has lead staff to avoid deep investment in their students' well-being. The literature indicates that students are in need of psychological support, but pastoral care remains ill-defined despite enduring expectations held by university administrators. Teacher motivation is diminished by time spent with students in need of emotional support which is not acknowledged in workloads. Staff stress is increased by 'emotion work' requiring a greater integration of resources that guide them toward more appropriate and timely student support. Conclusion: Staff require ongoing professional development on the nature of MH problems among students. There is a need for specific orientation programs that better define pastoral care and identify support services for staff and students. Universities need to focus on what is needed to create a well-being environment. Workload allocations must include 'emotion work', and mental health professionals must be employed to improve intervention and support not only for students but also for University staff. With better defined pastoral care roles, academics can more effectively balance their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations toward both personal and corporate objectives. Further research into the efficacy of university resourcing of programs and services is needed.

s u m m a r y Background: The main purpose of this web-based survey was to evaluate Jordanian nursing students' knowledge and practice of standard precautions. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive design was used. Six public and four private Jordanian universities were invited to participate in the study. Approximately, seventeen hundred nursing students in the participating universities were invited via the students' portal on the university electronic system. For schools without an electronic system, students received invitations sent to their personal commercial email.