Nursing students' spiritual talks with patients - evaluation of a partnership learning programme in clinical practice

Spiritual Care in Undergraduate Nursing Education: An Integrative Review

BACKGROUND

The growth of international migration and globalization has increasingly diversified patient populations, emphasizing the need for nursing students to provide competent spiritual care.

PURPOSE

To understand the teaching and learning strategies used to prepare undergraduate nursing students for spiritual care.

METHODS

An integrative review with deductive data analysis was used to evaluate, analyze, and synthesize diverse research methodologies.

RESULTS

Three educational approaches were identified, including passive, reflective, and combinatory approaches. The combinatory approach appears most appropriate for diverse learning styles within a student group.

CONCLUSIONS

No one strategy is best, but any combination of educational strategies can positively impact spiritual care competency within clinical practice.

Bridging the experience-complexity gap with longitudinal clinical placements

BACKGROUND

Clinical learning is a critical element to prepare nursing students for the profession. There is limited evidence on the experience-complexity gap among novice nursing students entering the workforce.

PURPOSE

This study aimed to implement a novel longitudinal clinical experience program and examined readiness for practice for undergraduate nursing students.

METHODS

We used a prospective cohort design using the Casey-Fink Readiness for Practice survey.

FINDINGS

There have been 2,004 clinical placements filled since the start of the program. Repeated exposure at one organization provided consistency and continuity while allowing students to develop relationships with patients and staff in a variety of settings. The medical-surgical two clinical experience was a pivotal course that influenced students' perception to enter the nursing workforce.

DISCUSSION

Clinical and academic partners must collaborate to provide the necessary competencies required to enter the workforce. Longitudinal clinical programs may improve nursing students readiness for practice.

CONCLUSION

The continous and immersive nature of the longitudinal clinical experience program facilitated the development of critical thinking skills and clinical competence, suggesting that longitudinal clinical placements can bridge the experience-complexity gap in nursing education.

Educational interventions and strategies for spiritual care in nursing and healthcare students and staff: A scoping review

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To map existing evidence about educational interventions or strategies in nursing and allied healthcare concerning students' and staffs' spiritual care provision.

BACKGROUND

Spiritual care is an important part of whole person care, but healthcare staff lack competence and awareness of spiritual issues in practice. To rectify this, it is important to identify what educational approaches are most helpful in supporting them to provide spiritual care.

DESIGN

A scoping review using the PRISMA-ScR checklist.

METHOD

Searches in the databases CINAHL, MEDLINE, ATLA and ERIC were conducted for papers spanning January 2009-May 2020. Search terms were related to spirituality, spiritual care, education and clinical teaching. Appraisal tools were used.

RESULTS

From the 2128 potentially relevant papers, 36 were included. The studies were from 15 different countries and involved nurses, physicians and other health-related professions, and both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods were used. The results are presented in three themes: Understanding of spirituality, Strategies in educational settings, and Strategies in practice settings. The review points to great diversity in the content, lengths and setting of the educational interventions or strategies.

CONCLUSIONS

Courses in spiritual care should be implemented in curricula in both undergraduate and postgraduate education, and several studies suggest it should be mandatory. Courses should also be available for healthcare staff to raise awareness and to encourage the integration of spiritual care into their everyday practice. There is a need for greater consensus about how spirituality and spiritual care are described in healthcare settings.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Spiritual care must be included both in monodisciplinary and multidisciplinary educational settings. The main result of spiritual care courses is in building awareness of spiritual issues and self-awareness. To ensure the provision of spiritual care for patients in healthcare practices, continuing and multidisciplinary education is recommended.

The perceptions and experiences of medical students in a pediatric buddy program: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Partnership programs between medical students and patients provide students with non-clinical experiences that enhance medical learning, especially with respect to humanistic care. We explored the perceptions and experiences of medical students in a pediatric oncology buddy program.

METHODS

Using a basic interpretive qualitative approach, we conducted interviews with 15 medical students at three time points: before meeting his/her buddy (pre-interview), four months into the partnership (4-month interview), and at the end of the partnership (post interview). We then conducted a thematic analysis of the interview data.

RESULTS

All students in the program who met the study criteria (N = 15/16) participated. The medical students highlighted that: (a) providing support to buddies and their families is important; (b) providing care to children with serious illnesses is emotionally difficult; (c) developing deep connections with buddies and their families is rewarding; and (d) gaining empathy and personal fulfillment from buddies and their families is inevitable.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides an understanding of medical students' perceptions and experiences in a pediatric oncology, non-clinical buddy program. Tailored one-on-one partnerships between medical students and pediatric oncology patients play an important role in medical education and contributes to the teaching of humanistic care.

The Content, Teaching Methods and Effectiveness of Spiritual Care Training for Healthcare Professionals: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review

CONTEXT

Spirituality has been demonstrated to play an important role in healthcare, yet many staff feel ill-equipped to deliver spiritual care. Spiritual care training programs have been developed to address this need.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this mixed-methods systematic review was to identify spiritual care training programs for healthcare professionals or students, and to investigate program content, teaching methods, key outcomes, and identified challenges and facilitators.

METHODS

A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted. The search terms ('religio*' OR 'spiritual*' OR 'existenti*') were combined with ('educat*' OR 'train*' OR 'curricul*' OR 'program*'), AND ('care' OR 'therap*' OR 'treatment' OR 'competenc*'). Search terms were entered into the following data bases: PsycINFO, Medline, Cinahl and Web of Science. Findings were restricted to peer-reviewed studies published in English between January 2010 and February 2020.

RESULTS

Fifty-five studies were identified. The quality of studies was mixed. Programs encompassed a range of content and teaching methods. Reported outcomes included increased levels of competency across intrapersonal spirituality, interpersonal spirituality, and spiritual assessment and interventions. Identified barriers included competing healthcare priorities, negative perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care, resistance towards focusing on one's own spirituality, staff feeling inadequate, and the need for ongoing training. Facilitators included opportunities for reflection, involvement of chaplains, application of practical tools, opportunities for practice, online training, and managerial support.

CONCLUSIONS

Positive outcomes following spiritual care training were identified. Further research is needed to identify patient-related outcomes of staff training, and to examine how the benefits of such training can be maintained over time.

Effect of an Educational Intervention Delivered to Senior Nursing Students to Strengthen Spiritual Care for People with Chronic Illness

This is an experimental, quantitative, parallel design study (control and experimental groups) with pre- and post-intervention assessment without blinding, which aimed to determine the effect of an educational intervention delivered to ninety Colombian senior nursing students to strengthen perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care for people with chronic illness. The Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) was used as the instrument of measurement. The Wilcoxon test was used for comparisons between two groups, and the Kruskal-Wallis test for the comparison of global scale scores between the intervention group and the control group. To determine the effect of the intervention, Cohen's d statistic was used. The intervention modified the perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care in the experimental group (median = 80.2, SD = 10.2) compared with their initial perceptions (median = 70, SD = 11.2), p ≤ 0.001. The effect size (ES) of the intervention was 0.63, with a power of 0.80, indicating a moderate and acceptable effect size.

Talking about spiritual matters: First year nursing students' experiences of an assignment on spiritual conversations

BACKGROUND

Spiritual care is part of holistic nursing. However, nurses have reported that their education does not sufficiently prepare them for spiritual care in practice. Few studies have reported students' perspectives on how they acquire skills and knowledge in spiritual care.

AIM

The aim of the study was to explore how first year nursing students experienced a compulsory assignment that asked them to carry out a conversation with someone about spiritual aspects of nursing care and to reflect about it in relation to nursing.

DESIGN

The study was a qualitative content analysis of students' reflective logs.

METHODS

This research analysed the reflective logs of 385 (76%) first year nursing students from one religious and one secular university in Norway. The logs were written in response to an assignment based on Stoll's assessment guide, which asked them to carry out a conversation about spiritual aspects of nursing care.

RESULTS

Analysis yielded three main categories that characterised students' experience of this assignment: meeting oneself, beyond one's comfort zone and discovering the other.

CONCLUSIONS

Students brought few skills and little experience in spiritual care into their education, and they felt that spiritual care conversations were personal and outside of their comfort zone. It is challenging for nursing education to equip nursing students with the competence in spiritual care necessary to meet the standard set out by the International Council of Nursing.