Exploring the physical health needs of people with learning disabilities: facilitation student engagement in learning, using Kolb's experiential learning cycle

Health professionals' education related to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are among the most underserved in an inequitable healthcare system.

METHODS

Using Arksey and O'Malley's methodology and a social determinants of health framework, we conducted a scoping review of literature on the state of practice in education of healthcare professionals in the health and healthcare needs of this population.

RESULTS

Searches found 4948 articles, with 182 included in the final review. Themes identified included gaps of not being informed by workforce needs, continued use of the medical model of care, not addressing intersectionality with racial/ethnic and other discriminations, and lack of involvement of the population in developing/evaluating programs and promising trends of development of competency-based interprofessional programs with experiential learning.

CONCLUSION

We provide recommendations for best practices in a concerted effort to educate a healthcare workforce equipped with the knowledge and skills to address the health needs of this population.

Demands of experiential training for ICU nurses in Hunan of China

Objective

To assess intensive care unit (ICU) nurses’ demands for specialized experiential training and to provide inputs for developing an experiential training program for ICU nurses.

Methods

A questionnaire for assessing ICU nurses’ demands for experiential specialty training was distributed to 360 ICU nurses, selected through purposive sampling from two secondary hospitals and six tertiary hospitals in Hunan Province, China.

Results

Of the survey participants, 63.6% had undergone a specialty training program for ICU nurses. Of these individuals, 53.0% were satisfied with the training. Certification as a qualified nurse was considered an essential criterion for admission of trainees into the program by 81.8% of respondents, while 77.1% of respondents considered clinical working experience to be a critical requirement for selecting trainers. A total of 48.1% of the respondents preferred part-time training, and 36.1% considered a training cycle of 9–12 weeks to be reasonable. Moreover, they felt that the training methods should be tailored to different stages of the experiential learning cycle. Demands for experiential training among ICU nurses were quantified, with high demand reflected in an overall score of 4.41 ± 0.48. The “intensive care technology” experiential training module was ranked highest in terms of demand, with the top five sub-modules being specialty operating technology (4.67 ± 0.53), care of critically ill patients (4.66 ± 0.55), critical patient rescue procedures (4.65 ± 0.56), assessing monitoring indexes (4.63 ± 0.56), and the application of relevant instruments (4.61 ± 0.57).

Conclusion

Nearly half of the respondents indicated that their experiences of specialty training programs were not satisfactory, and they had high demands for experiential training. Thus, to optimize training outcomes, continuous updating of training methods is essential. Moreover, a systematic, comprehensive, and multilevel experiential training program that targets the specific needs of ICU nurses is essential.