Facilitated engagement approach: A novel approach to guide mentor conversations

BACKGROUND

Mentorship has been recognized as a strategy to develop leadership competencies in clinical leaders and has been integrated into leadership programs. However, there are few published frameworks to guide mentor conversations with mentees training to assume nursing leadership roles.

OBJECTIVE

This study explores mentors' perceptions of 6-month mentorship, a component of the Strengths-Based Nursing Leadership program, the effectiveness of the Facilitated Engagement Approach, a pedagogical strategy developed to facilitate conversation between the mentor and mentee, and the impact of mentorship on leadership practice of mentees.

METHODS

A mixed method qualitative and quantitative approach was used with semi-structured interviews and bi-weekly survey among mentors. Data were thematically analyzed.

RESULTS

Mentors described the use of the Facilitated Engagement Approach to guide their mentorship conversations and found it to be effective in mentoring program participants. Mentors described techniques used and the process of deepening a reflective mentorship conversation. The Spiraling Process (58 %) and the Story Sharing Process (74 %) were integral aspects of the Facilitated Engagement Approach used. Mentorship was found to be impactful in that mentors reported a change in their mentee.

CONCLUSIONS

The Facilitated Engagement Approach was an effective tool for mentees and mentors to develop leadership capacities.

Livogena: The Ikteros Curse-A Jaundice Narrative Card and Board Game for Medical Students

Introduction

Jaundice is a common condition that requires integrating knowledge of biochemistry, physiology, pathology, and general medicine. However, medical students face difficulty in learning with passive teaching methods. To enhance their learning, an educational story game that promotes active learning and assessment with immediate feedback was implemented.

Methods

This jaundice game was named Livogena: The Ikteros Curse-denoting the liver as the principal organ and jaundice (icterus) as a problem. One hundred fifty first-year medical students were divided into small groups to play using a game board and cards. The players moved ahead on the game board by providing the correct answer and completing the activities. The first team to reach the end was the winner. Perceptions and feedback questionnaires were distributed to students at the end of the game. Individual views about the game were recorded for qualitative analysis. Also, to analyze the effectiveness of this intervention, pre- and posttests on jaundice were conducted.

Results

Livogena: The Ikteros Curse resulted in a highly significant improvement in students' knowledge and application skills in jaundice, from 5.5 (SD = 2.4) in the pretest to 11.2 (SD = 7.6) in the posttest for 20 marks (p < .001). Students perceived and rated the game exceptionally positively.

Discussion

This educational game significantly increased learners' understanding of the concepts of jaundice. Highly positive perceptions from students further affirm this to be a creative innovation to enhance their learning and application of knowledge in an active and team-based learning environment.

Which audio distraction technique is more effective for reduction the pain and anxiety of pediatric dental patients; "music" or "kids-story"? A randomized split-mouth crossover clinical trial

OBJECTIVE

Control of pain, fear, and anxiety of children during dental procedures is a major challenge in pediatrics. This study aimed to compare the effect of audio distraction by music and audio-story on pain and anxiety of children during dental treatment.

METHODS

This randomized crossover clinical trial evaluated 60 systemically healthy children between 4 and 8 years, who were candidates for pulpotomy and steel crown of bilateral primary maxillary first or second molars. The patients were randomly divided into two groups of music-story (M first), and story-music (S first) according to the sequence of receipt of the distraction techniques with a split-mouth design. The level of pain and anxiety of patients was measured using physiological scales such as pulse rate (PR), sound-eye-motor (SEM) and faces pain rating (FPR). The pkcross package in Stata software version 14 was used to assess the treatment effect, period effect, sequence effect and carryover effect.

RESULTS

In each group, 28 cases were included in the analysis. The difference in PR was not significant at the onset and termination of each treatment session between two distraction techniques and also, the mean FPR (P = 0.55) and SEM (P > 0.99) scores were not significantly different between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The "audio-story" and "music" distraction techniques were not significantly different for pediatrics relieving during LA administration. Thus, considering the equal efficacy of the two techniques, dental clinicians can use any of the two to distract children.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

The study registered in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT20190702044077N1).

The art of film: Perspective on neural clues to repeated attraction to movie watching

This article about possible neural underpinning of repeated attraction to watching movies is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Eran Zaidel, who made outstanding contributions to neuroscience (and loved watching movies). The film is an art form crafted by multiple artists from diverse fields, contributing specialized skills, talents, and creativity to the final product. Attention-attraction to all artworks has deep biological roots. Movies have been attracting audiences repeatedly ever since they were introduced over 100 years ago. Although countless studies analyzed the nature of the art, the neural underpinning of repeated attraction to viewing movies has been understudied. Here, clues gleaned from non-film findings are proposed. The perspective suggests that functions of the mesolimbic "reward pathway" associated with pleasure and joy, the brain regions responding to facial beauty, to pictorial art aesthetics, and to music listening with increased dopamine levels are all recruited in the repeated attraction.

The effect of narrative element incorporation on physical activity and game experience in active and sedentary virtual reality games

Narratives are pervasive in video games and have been found to increase physical activity in active video games. However, the effect of incorporating narrative elements has seldom been examined in fully immersive virtual reality games. We investigated the effect of narrative element incorporation (between-subject: narrative vs. no narrative) in active virtual reality and sedentary virtual reality games (within-subject) and examined between- and within-subject effects on physical activity behavior, game experience, and physical activity engagement. We randomized 36 sedentary college students to either the narrative or the non-narrative group. All participants played an active virtual reality and a sedentary virtual reality game in counter-balanced order. Before each game session, they either watched a 5-min narrative video (narrative) or directly played the original virtual reality games without narratives (non-narrative). We collected participants' physical activity data using wrist-worn accelerometers; we obtained their game experience and physical activity engagement via questionnaires. The narrative group spent a greater proportion of time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (%) and had less non-movement time during the active virtual reality gameplay than the non-narrative group (all p values < .05). The active virtual reality sessions induced a greater positive affect and greater physical activity engagement ratings than the sedentary virtual reality sessions. The incorporation of narrative elements in active virtual reality increased the relative time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and reduced non-movement time, compared to the non-narrative group. Active virtual reality encouraged more activity by participants and offered them a more enjoyable gaming experience in which they engaged more. Active virtual reality is a feasible physical activity promotion option among sedentary adults; the incorporation of narrative elements in active virtual reality helps increase relative moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and should be further explored for its efficacy.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-023-00754-7.

Late dominance of the right hemisphere during narrative comprehension

PET and fMRI studies suggest that auditory narrative comprehension is supported by a bilateral multilobar cortical network. The superior temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) makes it an attractive tool to investigate the dynamics of how different neuroanatomic substrates engage during narrative comprehension. Using beta-band power changes as a marker of cortical engagement, we studied MEG responses during an auditory story comprehension task in 31 healthy adults. The protocol consisted of two runs, each interleaving 7 blocks of the story comprehension task with 15 blocks of an auditorily presented math task as a control for phonological processing, working memory, and attention processes. Sources at the cortical surface were estimated with a frequency-resolved beamformer. Beta-band power was estimated in the frequency range of 16-24 Hz over 1-sec epochs starting from 400 msec after stimulus onset until the end of a story or math problem presentation. These power estimates were compared to 1-second epochs of data before the stimulus block onset. The task-related cortical engagement was inferred from beta-band power decrements. Group-level source activations were statistically compared using non-parametric permutation testing. A story-math contrast of beta-band power changes showed greater bilateral cortical engagement within the fusiform gyrus, inferior and middle temporal gyri, parahippocampal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during story comprehension. A math-story contrast of beta power decrements showed greater bilateral but left-lateralized engagement of the middle frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule. The evolution of cortical engagement during five temporal windows across the presentation of stories showed significant involvement during the first interval of the narrative of bilateral opercular and insular regions as well as the ventral and lateral temporal cortex, extending more posteriorly on the left and medially on the right. Over time, there continued to be sustained right anterior ventral temporal engagement, with increasing involvement of the right anterior parahippocampal gyrus, STG, MTG, posterior superior temporal sulcus, inferior parietal lobule, frontal operculum, and insula, while left hemisphere engagement decreased. Our findings are consistent with prior imaging studies of narrative comprehension, but in addition, they demonstrate increasing right-lateralized engagement over the course of narratives, suggesting an important role for these right-hemispheric regions in semantic integration as well as social and pragmatic inference processing.

The patient-authored medical record: A narrative path to a new tool in psychiatric nursing

This paper describes preliminary research from Japan on developing a new tool for psychiatric nurses, the patient-authored medical record, a "prescription" written in ordinary language by the patient with the assistance of a nurse. The nurse asks the patient how to improve their illness and she types up the patient's story on site in the form of a first-person narrative. The patient checks it for accuracy before taking a copy home. Ten Japanese patients participated in this field-oriented ethnographic study, and the analysis of the qualitative data strongly suggested that the approach had therapeutic effects on each patient. This narrative-based prescription could be used as a tool, specifically by psychiatric nurses, in many cultures, and it is our hope that it contributes to their professional identity.

The effect of character similarity on children's learning from fictional stories: The roles of race and gender

Factors that make stories more or less similar to children's lives may influence learning. One such factor, the similarity of characters in a story to its readers, may influence learning because of children's social preference for similar others, because of stronger identification with similar characters, or because some types of similarity may indicate to children whether the story is relevant to their lives. The current studies examined the effects of two types of character similarity (race and gender) on 6- to 8-year-olds' learning from stories to begin to disambiguate these possibilities. In Study 1, White children demonstrated greater learning on implicit measures (i.e., free recall) from a story with a White character versus a Black character. Although children said that they were more similar to and identified more strongly with a White character than a Black character, these factors did not predict learning. In Study 2, character gender did not influence learning or identification. Children showed preferences for own-race and own-gender playmates, but these preferences did not predict learning. These findings suggest that White children's greater learning from the White character was not due to social preference for similar others or to stronger identification with the White character. One explanation for the divergent findings for race and gender is that, because of the differing roles of race and gender within U.S. society, children may use race but not gender as a cue as to whether the information provided in a story is relevant for them.

Storying COVID-19: fear, digitalisation, and the transformational potential of storytelling

Stories are being increasingly recognised for their potential as creators, not only depicters, of change. As such, they are receiving greater interest within sustainability science, not least in the approaches specifically focused on transformative processes of co-creation. But while highly powerful, stories are confined by both inherent and external frameworks that, if not acknowledged, limit their transformative potential. This paper addresses two such critical issues-fear and digitalisation-and discusses the ways in which they influence how and with what effects stories can be told. It uses the COVID-19 pandemic as illustration of storytelling processes and outlines some of the ways in which we can, and cannot, draw parallels between pandemic and climate change storytelling.

Estimation of trees height and vertical structure using SAR interferometry in uneven-aged and mixed forests

Estimation of forest height is an important parameter of stands structure that aids in the determination of forest biomass, successional stage dynamics, and the decision of the type of forest management. In addition, estimating the height of trees especially in uneven-aged, massive, and multi-storied forest stands always faces challenges in kind of inventory and accuracy of the assessment. In this research, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry technique was used to estimate the height of trees for determining the vertical structure of forest. For this purpose, we focused on an area at the mixed and uneven-aged forest in Iran and evaluated the potential of Envisat ASAR data to characterize the tree height in the forest patches and the digital surface model (DSM) was produced via SAR interferometry. The height of trees and the vertical structure of the forest stands were estimated using produced DSM and Digital elevation Model (DEM). Furthermore, the accuracy of estimated parameters was evaluated with real ground data (11 × 1 ha (100 × 100 m) sample plots). The results indicated that the estimated height of trees was meanly 7.69 m with a 22 m STDV over the reality. Furthermore, the vertical structure in all the plots was three-storied that they are the same as ground truth, but the percentage of the share of trees in the under and middle story was different from the ground truth. In conclusion, the tree height and vertical structure of forest stands can be determined with acceptable accuracy via SAR interferometry and Envisat ASAR data.

Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis

We acquire a lot of information about the world through texts, which can be categorized at the broadest level into two primary genres: narratives and exposition. Stories and essays differ across a variety of dimensions, including structure and content, with numerous theories hypothesizing that stories are easier to understand and recall than essays. However, empirical work in this area has yielded mixed results. To synthesize research in this area, we conducted a meta-analysis of experiments in which memory and/or comprehension of narrative and expository texts was investigated. Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

Affective and psycholinguistic norms for German conceptual metaphors (COMETA)

Figurative expressions have been shown to play a special role in evoking affective responses, as compared to their literal counterparts. This study provides the first database of conceptual metaphors that includes ratings of affective properties beyond psycholinguistic properties. To allow for the investigation of natural reading processes, 64 natural stories were created, half of which contained two or three conceptual metaphors that relied on the same mapping, whereas the other half contained the metaphors' literal counterparts. To allow for tighter control and manipulation of the different properties, 120 isolated sentences were also created, half of which contained one metaphorical word, which was replaced by its literal rendering in the other half. All stimuli were rated for emotional valence, arousal, imageability, and metaphoricity, and the pairs of metaphorical and literal stimuli were rated for their similarity in meaning. A measure of complexity was determined and computed. The stories were also rated for naturalness and understandability, and the sentences for familiarity. Differences between the metaphorical and literal stimuli and relationships between the affective and psycholinguistic variables were explored and are discussed in light of extant empirical research. In a nutshell, the metaphorical stimuli were rated as being higher in emotional arousal and easier to imagine than their literal counterparts, thus confirming a role of metaphor in evoking emotion and in activating sensorimotor representations. Affective variables showed the typical U-shaped relationship consistently found in word databases, whereby increasingly positive and negative valence is associated with higher arousal. Finally, interesting differences between the stories and sentences were observed.

Evaluating the strength of evidence in research and education: The theory of anchored narratives

Empirical research based on groups of participants and assessment of the competence of individual students, trainees, and professionals in a given context have at least one thing in common: evidence in favour or against a hypothesis should be established by carefully considering and integrating various pieces of evidence to create a coherent story that has no contradictions, loose ends or missing elements. To provide a coherent framework for this process, this article introduces a modified version of a theory that has been used as a model of legal decision making in criminal cases: the theory of anchored narratives. In this theory, judges in a case judge the quality of pieces of evidence and whether these pieces of evidence can be anchored as narratives to form a chain of evidence that enables a decision beyond reasonable doubt regarding a suspect's guilt. This article provides examples from the domain of medicine to elaborate how a modified version of this theory can provide researchers and educators with a framework in which the assessment of both empirical research and competence is a qualitative professional judgement based on an integration of various sources of qualitative and quantitative information.

The myth of the total institution: Written narratives of patients' views of sanatorium care 1908-1959

Drawing on written narratives by 72 former sanatorium patients, this article explores, from patients' perspectives, the nature of the relationships between patients and staff in a Swedish sanatorium during the first half of the twentieth century. These narratives are discussed in the context of the total institution. This article suggests that this phenomenon was marked by inconsistencies that can be understood in terms of its situational and contradictory characteristics. Simultaneously, these narratives are in opposition to the assumption of the static and powerless patient adapted only to suit the logic of the institution.