Seeing is believing – Reducing misconceptions about children's hospice care through effective teaching with undergraduate nursing students

Integration of a Hospice Clinical Experience: Nursing Students' Perceptions

Prelicensure nursing programs have been slow to integrate end-of-life care into their curricula. In those prelicensure nursing programs that do offer courses on end-of-life care, student outcomes include positive attitudes toward dying patients. This mixed-method study had 2 purposes: first to compare 2 teaching strategies, hospice simulation and hospice clinical. The second purpose of this study was to strengthen understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of nursing students caring for dying patients and their families in both simulated and hospice clinical settings. Fourth-year nursing students enrolled in a Medical-Surgical Nursing III course participated in the study (n = 134). Participants were placed in an inpatient hospice clinical setting or a hospice simulation. Students completed the Frommelt Attitudes Toward Care of the Dying Scale and a reflection journal, before and after the assigned clinical or hospice day. Thematic analysis of the reflection journals was conducted. Key phrases and themes were identified, and the major themes were described. Prior to the hospice clinical or simulated educational experience, students reported feeling anxious caring for a dying patient or a patient who has just died. After the hospice clinical or simulation, students reported feeling more comfortable discussing end-of-life preferences with the patient and interdisciplinary team.

Matilda the Musical: the potential value of the arts in children's nursing education

BACKGROUND

Final-year children's nursing students evaluated the content of their course and there was strong evidence they would benefit from supplementary teaching of safeguarding before qualification.

AIM

To explore the potential for the arts to enable children's nursing students to think critically and reflectively about the safeguarding of children and young people.

METHOD

An action research approach was used, recruiting final-year children's nursing students in one university in the south of England. Questionnaires containing open and closed questions were used to collect data after a field trip to see Matilda the Musical, followed by discussion boards.

FINDINGS

Data analysis indicated the use of the arts was a departure from traditional pedagogy, which was relished and described by the students as an interesting and exciting way of learning. Students highlighted how 'seeing' Matilda aided them later on the discussion boards to identify categories of abuse and correlate this with the effects of abuse.

CONCLUSION

The use of musical theatre and discussion boards was beneficial to acquiring knowledge and bonding when delivering safeguarding teaching to final-year children's nursing students.

Analysis of the concept of Meaningful Learning in light of the Ausubel's Theory

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the concept of Meaningful Learning, according to David Ausubel's Theory.

METHOD

Integrative review using the Meleis's Theoretical Analysis model.

RESULTS

The following were identified as antecedents: Previous students' knowledge, potentially meaningful instructional material and student's willingness to learn. The attributes found were: Existence of previous knowledge that allows the connection with the new knowledge; interaction of previous and new knowledge in the cognitive structure; expansion of the cognitive structure through the incorporation of prior knowledge with the new. The consequent ones found: Existence of new knowledge in the cognitive structure of the student, that generate sense and meaning in the cognitive system of the student and that confers importance to him according to the utility for his daily life.

CONCLUSION

The conceptual analysis carried out contributed to the establishment of a more complete definition for Meaningful Learning, which can be appreciated in teaching and research, regardless of the area of activity.

Factors Associated With Knowledge and Comfort Providing Palliative Care: A Survey of Pediatricians in Mexico

BACKGROUND:

Lack of education and training in palliative care has been described to be one of the most important barriers to pediatric palliative care implementation.

OBJECTIVE:

To examine what factors determine the degree of knowledge and level of comfort Mexican pediatricians have providing pediatric palliative care.

METHODS:

A questionnaire that assessed palliative care concepts was developed and applied online to Mexican pediatricians, both generalists and specialists.

RESULTS:

A total of 242 pediatricians responded. The majority had not received palliative care education (92.6%) and felt uncomfortable discussing palliative needs with patients and families (92.1%). The mean score of the questionnaire was 6.8 (±1.4) of 10 correct answers. Knowledge in palliative care was associated with exposure to oncologic patients ( P = .01) and previous palliative care education ( P = .02) but inversely related to the pediatrician's age ( P = .01). Comfort addressing patient's palliative care needs was associated with knowledge in palliative care ( P < .01), exposure to oncologic patients ( P = .03), and previous education in palliative care ( P = .02).

CONCLUSIONS:

Although Mexican pediatricians have basic knowledge of palliative care concepts, they do not feel comfortable addressing palliative care needs, suggesting that the main barrier for implementing palliative care is not the lack of knowledge but rather feeling uncomfortable when addressing these issues with patients and families. Educational programs should incorporate strategies that could help physicians develop comfort in approaching palliative care patients.

Creating Meaningful Learning for Children's Nursing Students: Can Museum Field Trips Offer Added Value?

Children's nurses require a wide range of skills and knowledge to enable them to provide the best care for children and families, thus nurse educators must continually strive to ensure they create appropriate and meaningful learning for students in their journey to become children's nurses. Museum visits have been utilized previously within nurse education, but no evidence as to any added value of such visits on the learning of children's nursing students has been reported. This article highlights an innovative teaching strategy that was introduced to a group of year 1 children's nursing students-a field visit to the Museum of Childhood in London-and demonstrates the potential value to their learning. Students worked together in small groups within the museum exploring topics relevant to children's nursing. They had an opportunity to reflect and research further and then worked together to present their learning to their peers. Subsequent evaluation of both the visit and the presentation helped unravel the extent of student learning and highlighted that a range of different learning had taken place. Not without its challenges, the museum visit seemed to provide a meaningful learning experience for students, and suggestions for improving the learning for future similar groups have been explored.

Cohort study to evaluate the assimilation and retention of knowledge after theoretical test in undergraduate health science

Highlights

Study was conducted at the UniLurio to evaluate the assimilation and retention capacity.Students from undergraduate in Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nutrition, Optometry and Nursing.A questionnaire was applied in three evaluation periodspretest), posttest) and after six months.Assimilation and retention capacity improves student knowledge.Assimilation and retention capacity suffered a small deterioration with passage oftime.

Background

Each year new undergraduate courses are emerging in Mozambique, and with them the number of students has been increasing exponentially. In higher education institutions, particularly in the health sciences, knowledge retention becomes essential for learning and for efficient and effective training of capable health professionals.

Methodology

This is a prospective cohort study, conducted at the Lurio University, Mozambique. To evaluate the assimilation and retention of knowledge, a theoretical lesson was taught. The class time was 90 minutes divided into a theoretical stageand the other was a discussion stage (30 minutes) for clarification of doubts. Questionnaire was administered in the pretest, post-test and after six months.

Results

Of all students (n = 241), enrolled in the second semester of the first year of the course, 190 students did the pretest, 187 did the post-test and 183 students did the test after six months. Before the lecture none of the course managed to achieve the satisfactory percentage of 75% of correct answers (p<0,001). Assimilation of knowledge in the post-test performance there has been a significant increase in knowledge, in all questions the students reached the recommended percentage as "satisfactory knowledge" (p < 0.001). The post-test suggests that participants in this study had a significant capacity of memorization which is essential in the retention of knowledge.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the assimilative and retention capacity improve the student knowledge immediately after a theoretical lesson with addition audiovisual resources, and the acquired knowledge remains even though there is a deterioration with passage of the time.

A utilização da teoria da aprendizagem significativa no ensino da Enfermagem

RESUMO Objetivo: sintetizar a produção científica acerca da Teoria da Aprendizagem Significativa no processo de ensino-aprendizagem em Enfermagem. Método: revisão integrativa realizada nas bases de dados MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, BDENF e CINAHL, com artigos que abordaram a temática ou aspectos da teoria da aprendizagem significativa de David Ausubel. Fizeram parte da amostra dez artigos, sendo seis escritos no idioma português e quatro no inglês, publicados de 1998 a 2013. Resultados: cinco artigos fizeram alusão à Teoria da Aprendizagem Significativa, quatro citaram Ausubel como autor dessa teoria e apenas dois seguiram a estrutura para a aplicação da teoria completamente. Há escassez de estudos sobre o tema e os que o abordam não o correlacionam com a teoria de Ausubel. Conclusão: faz-se necessário romper com a dicotomia entre teoria e prática e promover a articulação dos conteúdos com a ação, introduzindo o aluno como autor de seu próprio conhecimento.

Radiation Therapy Students' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs about Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Cancer Patients

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Although radiation therapy students are highly interested in providing palliative and end-of-life care (PEOLC), students often lack understanding of what palliative care is and express a lack of confidence when interacting with palliative patients. This study examined radiation therapy students' existing knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs toward PEOLC for cancer patients and how professional and personal experiences influenced those factors.

METHODS

This study used a cross-sectional online questionnaire. After informed consent, data were collected from a sample of students in an undergraduate radiation therapy program in Canada. Questions were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Responses were comprised of Likert scales and true or false responses, a case study-based vignette and several short open-ended questions.

RESULTS

Sixty-one students completed the questionnaire; the response rate was 42%. Responses indicate students had an incomplete understanding of PEOLC principles despite reporting positive views and interest in the topic. Professional and personal experiences improved students' knowledge regarding the role of PEOLC and attitudes and beliefs became more positive with increased real-life experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

Experiential learning influences students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about PEOLC. To better prepare students for their future professional roles, it is necessary for radiation therapy undergraduate programs to include PEOLC educational initiatives in its curricula. These initiatives should emphasize holistic care to prepare students to be competent radiation therapists who can address patients' complex PEOLC needs.