Optimising the Care of Children with Intellectual Disabilities in Hospital

Emeritus Professor Edward Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton discusses the complexities of care delivery to children in hospital with intellectual disabilities.

Play Within the Pre-registration Children's Nursing Curriculum Within the United Kingdom: A Content Analysis of Programme Specifications

PURPOSE

To determine the number of programme specifications which cite play within the curriculum and in what context. Play is an essential part of childhood. Therefore we might expect nurses caring for children to be trained in how to facilitate play within their clinical areas. Programme specifications provide information on course aims, the intended learning outcomes and what the learner is expected to achieve.

DESIGN AND METHOD

Inductive qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS

Only 13% (seven out of 54) programme specifications published by Higher Education Institutions cite play. Where play is mentioned there is a clear link made to use play as a communication tool. Also distraction figured prominently within the same sentence as play, despite these two terms being quite distinct. The availability of the programme specifications was also noted with 49% (28 out of 57) were easily accessible from the university web sites. A further 16% (9 out of 57) provided web links when access was requested. 35% were not publicly accessible without requesting access. Three Universities declined to be involved.

CONCLUSION

It is clear that even if play is embedded within the child field nursing curriculum, it is not clearly stated as a priority within 87% of universities programme specifications which make no mention of it.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

If play is not part of programme specifications its importance could be lost to educators already delivering a full curriculum. Nurses could be qualifying with little or no knowledge around their role in facilitating play for their patients.

Improving the care of children with learning disabilities in hospital

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses care delivery for children with learning disabilities or autism who require a hospital stay, prompted by the recent Lenehan report.