RN as gatekeeper: Student understanding of the RN buddy role in clinical practice experience

Cyberbullying, student nurses' ethical awareness and the Covid-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND

The global COVID-19 pandemic has increased cyber communication, causing nursing students' clinical practice to be held in cyberspace. Thus, it is essential to ensure that nursing students develop comprehensive cyber ethics awareness. Moreover, cyberbullying is becoming more widespread and is an increasingly relevant new concept.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to assess the experiences of cyberbullying among nursing students during clinical practice and determine the effects of cyberbullying victimization and cyber environments on their cyber ethics awareness.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Data for this descriptive cross-sectional study were collected in July 2020 using a self-reported questionnaire and analyzed using hierarchical regression.

PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT

The study included data from 291 nursing students with more than 6 months of clinical experience who were enrolled in two nursing universities in two cities in South Korea.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This study was conducted after obtaining approval from the Institutional Review Board of G University. Written, informed consent was obtained from all participants.

RESULTS

Cyberbullying victimization experiences during clinical practice were few. The most common cyberbullies of work- and person-related cyberbullying were nurses and classmates, respectively.

DISCUSSION

Cyber ethics awareness was affected by cyber anonymity and the perceived seriousness of cyberbullying; cyberbullying related to clinical practices was a new factor that significantly affected cyber ethics awareness.

CONCLUSIONS

Hospitals and nursing universities should develop a multi-dimensional, comprehensive, and effective nursing intervention education program to be integrated into the nursing curriculum to enhance cyber ethics awareness and reduce cyberbullying of nursing students.

Role-modelling and the hidden curriculum: New graduate nurses' professional socialisation

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To explore new graduate nurses' experiences of professional socialisation by registered nurses in hospital-based practice settings, and identify strategies that support professional identity development.

BACKGROUND

Professionalism is reinforced and stabilised in the clinical environment through the "hidden curriculum", with major learning coming from practice role-models. New graduates observe attitudes, behaviours, decision-making and skills, and gain feedback from registered nurses, which they translate into their own practice. Professional socialisation occurs through encounters with desirable and undesirable role-modelling; both are significant in professional identity formation.

DESIGN

Qualitative descriptive design.

METHOD

Data collection was undertaken through semistructured interviews with five new graduate nurse participants. A general inductive approach guided analysis. The meaningful descriptions gained provided insight into their experiences.

RESULTS

Three main themes identified from the data include: "Lessons from the wilderness"; "Life in the wild"; and "Belonging to a wolf pack". The data set highlighted the major transitional process from student identity to registered nurse.

CONCLUSIONS

New graduates' rethinking of beliefs and professional nursing identities were influenced by organisational pressures and experienced nurses' role-modelling practices contrary to professional values. Despite encountering a range of professional behaviours, attitudes and dilemmas, new graduates were capable of moral agency and critical thinking. However, they rapidly acculturated and described compromises to cope. To promote high morale and a sense of belonging, a concerted effort is required by all nurses to facilitate the socialisation process to encourage self-authorship.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

A well-developed professional identity enhances nursing as a profession, contributing towards better healthcare delivery and outcomes. It is critically important how professional values are learnt within the culture of nursing. Tensions in clinical practice need to be understood better to avoid moral distress caused by dissonance between expectation and experience. It is advantageous to increase early positive socialisation.

Emotional work and diversity in clinical placements of nursing students

PURPOSE

To learn how students experience clinical placements in a setting of diversity and how they cope with the emotional challenges involved.

DESIGN

This study is based on inductive, qualitative research undertaken with Israeli nursing students.

METHOD

In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 students: 10 Arabs (5 men and 5 women), 9 Jews (2 men and 7 women), and 1 Circassian. The interviews were analyzed through coding and categorization.

FINDINGS

The students' experiences are characterized by emotional strains of various sorts-stress, ambivalence, disgust, frustration, and conflict-that arise in three types of relationships: relationships with patients, with the clinical instructors, and with other students who are on their teams. The data show that diversity has an impact on all these relationships. The data further show that the students cope with the emotional strains by using several strategies of emotional work: distancing, self-strengthening, self-motivation work, and minimizing significance.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

(a) Nursing students' experiences during their clinical placements should be understood in terms of emotional challenges, and their emotional work and coping strategies call for appropriate forms of support. (b) The diversity of the clinical placement environment should be considered as an important factor, both in understanding students' experiences and learning processes and in designing the support that they need.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Culturally diverse settings entail distinct challenges that impact students' emotional reaction to clinical work. Understanding the types of emotional work students do in the process of their clinical experience is critical for educators seeking to promote genuinely caring and effective nursing in culturally diverse settings.