Using Narratives to Enhance Nursing Practice and Leadership: What Makes a Good Nurse?

"I want to have stories too". Nursing students' views on nursing identity and reasons for choosing nursing as a career: A qualitative study

AIM

To understand and interpret nursing students' views on nursing identity and their reasons for choosing nursing as a career after participating in a face-to-face storytelling panel by academics.

BACKGROUND

Knowing nursing students' view of the profession and their thoughts about the profession, their roles and their future will guide nursing academics to develop evidence-based strategies that will enable participants to realize their own professional identities. Storytelling has an important role in creating and strengthening a strong professional identity among participants.

DESIGN

This study is a sample case study.

METHODS

This research was carried out in the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year with participants registered in nursing program at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a state university in the Central Anatolia Region of Türkiye. The study was completed with one hundred ten participants. Five academics were invited to the panel at the Faculty of Health Sciences to share their experiences, stories and reasons for choosing nursing as a career through storytelling. The data were collected using the surveys, which includes five structured open ended questions and analyzed using descriptive analysis.

RESULTS

Five main themes emerged: 1. Participants' views on nursing profession; 2. Awareness of positive/negative emotions related to the profession as a part of nursing stories and feeling that these emotions are experienced in the stories; 3. Changes in the perspective of the profession and sense of belonging to the profession as part of nursing stories; 4. Facilitators in choosing nursing as a career; and 5. Barriers to choosing nursing as a career.

CONCLUSION

Providing participants with the chance to both listen to the real stories of academic nurses and to reflect on themselves through writing was a dynamic experience that motivated participants to understand their perceptions of nurses and nursing profession.

Identifying the contributors to nursing caring success stories

AIMS

To (a) seek examples of nursing caring success stories and (b) identify the common contributors to these successes. By focusing on the successes of nursing care rather than critically examining failures, this research seeks to provide examples of proven and feasible approaches and processes for improving care.

DESIGN

This study used a narrative inquiry design.

METHODS

Data were collected through group interviews. Four interviews were conducted with a total of 20 nurse participants working in inpatient settings in South Australian hospitals. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

Two dominant themes concerning the contributors to caring success were identified. These contributors were (1) the provision of holistic care and (2) the influence of the caring community, which includes family members and other patients. The findings also indicated that the definition of caring success according to nurses is not aligned with organisational performance indicators but is more closely represented by caring values.

CONCLUSION

Success, according to nurses, is not exclusively defined by patient outcomes but includes the approach to, and process of, care delivery.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND/OR PATIENT CARE

Nurses value the caring process while working in an environment that primarily values clinical and systems-level outcomes. Nurses want patients and their families, allied health professionals and hospital executives to be involved and invested in the process of care.

IMPACT

This study addressed a gap in the current literature to identify commonalities in nursing success stories, the contributors informing these successes and how these contributors can facilitate improved patient care. Understanding nursing definitions of caring success provides an opportunity to expand upon current accepted industry definitions and perspectives such as key performance indicators.

REPORTING METHOD

Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) checklist.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No direct patient or public contribution.

Taking the chance!-Interindividual differences in rule-breaking

While some individuals tend to follow norms, others, in the face of tempting but forbidden options, tend to commit rule-breaking when this action is beneficial for themselves. Previous studies have neglected such interindividual differences in rule-breaking. The present study fills this gap by investigating cognitive characteristics of individuals who commit spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking (rule-breakers) versus rule-followers. We developed a computerised task, in which 133 participants were incentivised to sometimes violate set rules which would-if followed-lead to a loss. While 52% of participants tended to break rules to obtain a benefit, 48% tended to follow rules even if this behaviour led to loss. Although rule-breakers experienced significantly more cognitive conflict (measured via response times and mouse movement trajectories) than rule-followers, they also obtained higher payoffs. In rule-breakers, cognitive conflict was more pronounced when violating the rules than when following them, and mainly during action planning. This conflict increased with frequent, recurrent, and early rule-breaking. Our results were in line with the Decision-Implementation-Mandatory switch-Inhibition model and thus extend the application of this model to the interindividual differences in rule-breaking. Furthermore, personality traits such as extroversion, disagreeableness, risk propensity, high impulsiveness seem to play a role in the appreciation of behaviours and cognitive characteristics of rule-followers and rule-breakers. This study opens the path towards the understanding of the cognitive characteristics of the interindividual differences in responses towards rules, and especially in spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking.

Positive consequences of the hidden curriculum in undergraduate nursing education: An integrative review

Background:

Hidden Curriculum (HC) plays an essential role in nursing education and professionalism. However, its positive consequences have been overlooked. Thus, this study aimed to explore and discuss the positive consequences of HC in nursing undergraduate education.

Materials and Methods:

A comprehensive literature search was conducted to investigate articles published between January 2010 and December 2020. Furthermore, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was used to select articles, and Consolidated criteria for Reporting Qualitative research (COREQ) and Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) tools were employed to appraise qualitative and quantitative studies, respectively. The applied search strategy resulted in a final list of 16 articles out of a total of 132 articles. Next, the data were integrated and categorized using the Whittemore and Knafl methodology.

Results:

Three categories were identified: Individual Consequences; involving increased self-confidence, self-esteem, assertiveness, adaptation, autonomy, and lifelong learning. Social Consequences; involving enhanced socialization, cultural consciousness, and social interactions. Professional Consequences; involving professional socialization, professional identity, professional ethics, link theory and practice, and professional dignity.

Conclusions:

Altogether, we concluded that the emergence of HC and its positive and remarkable consequences in nursing knowledge helps the personal, social, and professional development in nursing.

Archetypal meanings of being a paramedic: A hermeneutic review

BACKGROUND

Interpretations of being a paramedic are normally unspoken in the literature and easily overlooked in the busyness of everyday work. The premise of this study was to explicate historical and cultural archetypes of the paramedic from within relevant literature.

METHODS

A hermeneutic review was conducted to explore meanings associated with being a paramedic. This was a novel approach to exploring meanings of being and provided a rich depiction of the cultural and historical nuances inherent in paramedic work.

RESULTS

Six paramedic archetypes were identified and related broadly to the principles of service, care and stoicism. These archetypes provided glimpses of how the paramedic is theorised both within and external to the profession, as well as gaps related to how the phenomenon of being a paramedic is experienced amid everyday practice situations.

CONCLUSION

Historical archetypes of the paramedic need to be recognised by paramedics as important in shaping the inherited cultural meanings of the work they do. However, due to the limited ability of fixed archetypes to capture the dynamic meanings of being a paramedic further research is required to understand how paramedics experience their caring work as meaningful across diverse contexts.

Here and now: Lived experiences of professional nurses practising caring presence in a rural public hospital in the North West Province, South Africa

BACKGROUND

Practising caring presence is recognised as an important nursing intervention indispensable to high-quality, patient-centred care. An awareness of the real world of professional nurses (PNs) practising caring presence will assist in expanding and supporting the existing literature on the same. A clear and rich description of what the concept of caring presence entails within the unique South African nursing context may guide nurses in the art of this nursing skill, enhance their professionalism and facilitate the formulation of recommendations on how to encourage nurses to implement the practice of caring presence within nursing.

AIM

This study explored and described the lived experiences of PNs practising caring presence in a rural public hospital.

SETTING

The study setting was a 120-bed, level-two district hospital in the North West Province of South Africa.

METHODS

A descriptive phenomenological method, specifically Husserl's approach, informed this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 10 PNs. Data were coded and analysed using Colaizzi's seven-step method.

RESULTS

Five themes emerged from the data analysis: professional caring presence, ethical caring presence, personal caring presence, healing caring presence and what caring presence is not.

CONCLUSION

Professional nurses experience practising caring presence as professionally and personally fulfilling, as an expression of their passion for the profession, as a way of portraying ethical care, as a willingness to be personally present and as a healing experience that involves commitment and taking care of patients holistically. Unprofessional, unethical behaviour and depersonalisation of patients were indicated as uncaring behaviour.

The Narrative Circle Model: An interpretative framework for nursing education and research

BACKGROUND

A research study entitled "Newly-Graduated Baccalaureate Registered Nurses, the 21st Century Health Care Environment and Mapping the Landscape for Curricular Change" explored the perceptions of newly graduated registered nurses (NGRNs). During the research process, a model for nursing education and research was revealed and subsequently developed as an interpretative framework.

PURPOSE

Qualitative narrative inquiry research explored the perceptions of newly graduated registered nurses and shaped the creation of the Narrative Circle Model for Nursing Education and Research (NCMNER). This paper will explain how the model represents the cyclic yet reciprocal relationship among education, research, and practice using narratives.

DESCRIPTION

The NCMNER provides a unique perspective by illustrating knowledge gained from narratives of NGRNs using narrative inquiry research methodology to influence nursing education and practice. Ultimately, the model will illustrate the significant implications of education and research in advancing the future of nursing with educational, social, and political change.

CONCLUSION

Concepts from the NCMNER provided an interpretative framework for the major findings of the research; specifically, narratives used in educational curriculum, narratives from research methodology, and hence the relationships between narratives in education and research.