Going Domestic: Importing the Study Abroad Experience. The Development of a Multicultural New York City Study Away Program

A Descriptive Analysis of the Experiences of Nursing Students Who Participated in an International Service-Learning Project in Haiti

BACKGROUND

Studies have demonstrated multiple benefits of international service-learning experiences in nursing education. These benefits include personal and professional growth, increased cultural sensitivity, and increased self-efficacy.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this project was to describe the experiences of nursing students engaged in an international service-learning experience in Haiti.

METHOD

A descriptive qualitative outcomes evaluation project was utilized to understand student perceptions of this experience. Nine respondents were interviewed about their experiences that took place as part of a nursing capstone course offered at a private liberal arts university in the Midwest. Interview transcripts were analyzed by the authors for common themes.

RESULTS

The six themes identified included: a desire for an international experience to better understand healthcare in a developing country; culture shock; context of poverty; excitement and a sense of "helping" amidst the chaos; feelings of increased confidence, independence, and competence; and personal and professional growth. Responses indicated students felt more confident in caring for individuals from other cultures as well as in basic nursing skills and interprofessional communication after this experience. Participants' narratives also indicated intent to serve vulnerable populations in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

The nursing students perceived increased sociocultural understanding and self-efficacy following a 10-day international service-learning experience.

Cultural Competence and Cultural Sensitivity Education in University Nursing Courses. A Scoping Review

When assessing the fragility that characterizes the health of an immigrant person, a culturally competent transformation of the nurse-patient teaching-learning process is necessary. Therefore, it is considered essential to incorporate cultural competence and intercultural communication in higher nursing education.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the content and knowledge of cultural competence and intercultural communication offered in higher education in nursing courses.

DESIGN

The Campinha-Bacote model of cultural competence was used as the primary reference.

METHOD

A scoping review was conducted about studies published in the period 2003 and 2020. The research was conducted between May and October 2020. More than a hundred documents (books, chapters, articles, conference proceedings) have been consulted.

RESULTS

Undergraduate nursing courses and postgraduate education move toward promoting cultural competence and sensitivity through teaching strategies.

CONCLUSIONS

Teaching projects that combine multiple competencies are more effective, including teacher training. A predominant element is a need for continuous and transversal projects. University nursing education must adapt culturally competent curricula.

Current trends in global nursing: A scoping review

Aim

This review aimed to elucidate research trends in global nursing in international literature.

Design

A scoping literature review of the PRISMA was used to guide the review.

Methods

PubMed was used to search for English articles published in academic journals between 2016–2018. The search keywords were “global/international/world nursing.” We used thematic synthesis to analyse and interpret the data and generated topics for global nursing literature.

Results

In total, 133 articles were analysed. Six topics emerged: (a) conceptualization of global nursing, (b) environmental health, (c) infectious diseases, (d) security efforts, (e) global shortage of nursing personnel and (f) diversification of study abroad programmes. The results of this review reflect today's serious international health, labour and global environmental issues. Based on these latest global nursing topics, it is necessary to develop new strategies, nursing models and environment‐related theories to create and maintain a healthy environment.

Transformative learning as pedagogy for the health professions: a scoping review

CONTEXT

Transformative learning (TL) has been described as learning that challenges established perspectives, leading to new ways of being in the world. As a learning theory it has resonated with educators globally, including those in the health professions. Described as a complex metatheory, TL has evolved over time, eliciting divergent interpretations of the construct. This scoping review provides a comprehensive synthesis of how TL is currently represented in the health professions education literature, including how it influences curricular activities, to inform its future application in the field.

METHODS

Arksey and O'Malley's six-step framework was adopted to review the period from 2006 to May 2018. A total of 10 bibliographic databases were searched, generating 1532 potential studies. After several rounds of review, first of abstracts and then of full texts, 99 studies were mapped by two independent reviewers onto the internally developed data extraction sheet. Descriptive information about included studies was aggregated. Discursive data were subjected to content analysis.

RESULTS

A mix of conceptual and empirical research papers, which used a range of qualitative methodologies, were included. Studies from the USA, the UK and Australia were most prevalent. Insights relating to how opportunities for TL were created, how it manifests and influences behaviour, as well as how it is experienced, demonstrated much congruency. Conceptions of TL were seen to be clustered around the work of key theorists.

CONCLUSIONS

The training of health professionals often takes place in unfamiliar settings where students are encouraged to be active participants in providing care. This increases the opportunity for exposure to learning experiences that are potentially transformative, allowing for a pedagogy of uncertainty that acknowledges the complexity of the world we live in and questions what we believe we know about it. TL provides educators in the health professions with a theoretical lens through which they can view such student learning.