INTRODUCTION: Research indicates that newly graduated registered nurses struggle to develop practical skills and clinical understanding and to adapt to their professional role. To ensure quality of care and support new nurses, it is vital that this learning is elucidated and evaluated. Aim The aim was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument assessing work-integrated learning for newly graduated registered nurses, the Experienced Work-Integrated Learning (E-WIL) instrument.

METHOD: The study utilized the methodology of a survey and a cross-sectional research design. The sample consisted of newly graduated registered nurses (n = 221) working at hospitals in western Sweden. The E-WIL instrument was validated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

RESULTS: The majority of the study participants were female, the average age was 28 years, and participants had an average of five months' experience in the profession. The results confirmed the construct validity of the global latent variable E-WIL, "Transforming previous notions and new contextual knowledge into practical meaning," including six dimensions representing work-integrated learning. The factor loadings between the final 29 indicators and the six factors ranged from 0.30 to 0.89, and between the latent factor and the six factors from 0.64 to 0.79. The indices of fit indicated satisfactory goodness-of-fit and good reliability in five dimensions with values ranging from α = 0.70 to 0.81, except for one dimension showing a slightly lower reliability, α = 0.63, due to the low item number. Confirmatory factor analysis also confirmed two second-order latent variables, "Personal mastering of professional roles" with 18 indicators, and "Adapting to organisational requirements" with 11 indicators. Both showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit, and factor loading between indicators and the latent variables ranged from 0.44 to 0.90 and from 0.37 to 0.81, respectively.

CONCLUSION: The validity of the E-WIL instrument was confirmed. All three latent variables could be measured in their entirety, and all dimensions could be used separately for the assessment of work-integrated learning. The E-WIL instrument could be useful for healthcare organisations when the goal is to assess aspects of newly graduated registered nurses' learning and professional development.

Background Caring is grounded on universal humanistic values such as kindness, empathy, concern and love for self and others. Nurses need to learn how to implement these values in the care for patients. Nursing students find it hard to assimilate theoretical knowledge in practice. Experiential learning in the form of drama has been used in several studies to enhance nursing students' learning. Aim The aim of this study was to review empirical and theoretical articles on the use and application of drama in nursing education. Design An integrative review of the literature.MethodThe databases CINAHL, PubMed, ProQuest and Academic search elite were searched for articles. Result The search generated 64 articles, with 20 articles meeting the inclusive criteria. Three themes with their attendant subthemes emerged through the analysis. The themes are: The Framing, The Objectives and The Embodiment. Conclusion Drama is effective in entry level courses in nursing education to enhance student learning and can be flexible and adjusted to various contexts. Further research using drama to enroll nursing students as fictive patients and relatives and thereby explore different perspectives is suggested, and more research on the application of drama in nursing education at an advanced level is required.

BACKGROUND: User participation is an important aspect of nursing, especially within a rehabilitation setting where the emphasis is on the patient's ability to become as independent as possible. It is also decreed by law that students should learn about user participation. Furthermore, to achieve good nursing skills it is important for the students to understand "the what" and to reflect on "the how" regarding user participation.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to explore how students learn to apply user participation in a context of rehabilitation.

DESIGN AND METHOD: The design of the study is qualitative. Content analysis was adopted, and both inductive and deductive approaches were used. The informants were nursing students in the second and third years of the bachelor's degree at a university in Norway. Most of the students were in community health services, but some of them performed their internship at hospitals. Two focus groups with 11 students were conducted. In addition, the data also consist of 28 written reflections and 31 written work requirements in relation to rehabilitation. The students from the focus groups and the written work requirement were in practice in community health services. In the written reflections it was 14 students who had their internship at hospital and 14 students in community health services.

RESULTS: The main categories of the study are barriers to learning, dialogue as a tool and reflection as essential. The students learn to use check lists and focus on organizational planning, which might be a barrier to learning. Dialogue is important to improve the students' learning. Students need to reflect on user participation together with their supervisor to learn to be confident in encountering users, which indicates that reflection is essential.

CONCLUSION: The major findings indicate that students lack competence or user participation and that their supervisors seldom talk about it with them. Also, it should be compulsory reflection notes about user participation in the student's internships. Teachers at universities must inform supervisors and develop courses about mentorship and user participation. This may be a step forward to overcome theory-practice gap.

This discussion paper is aimed to map content analysis in the qualitative paradigm and explore common methodological challenges. We discuss phenomenological descriptions of manifest content and hermeneutical interpretations of latent content. We demonstrate inductive, deductive, and abductive approaches to qualitative content analysis, and elaborate on the level of abstraction and degree of interpretation used in constructing categories, descriptive themes, and themes of meaning. With increased abstraction and interpretation comes an increased challenge to demonstrate the credibility and authenticity of the analysis. A key issue is to show the logic in how categories and themes are abstracted, interpreted, and connected to the aim and to each other. Qualitative content analysis is an autonomous method and can be used at varying levels of abstraction and interpretation.

Professional development is a process starting during undergraduate education and continuing throughout working life. A new nurse's transition from school to work has been described as difficult. This study aims to develop a model describing the professional development of new nurses during their first years of work. To develop this model, constant comparative analyses were performed. The method was a qualitative study of survey data on 330 registered nurses. The results showed that mastering the professional role was the result of an ongoing process building on the nurse's experiences and interactions with the surrounding environment. The professional developmental process involves the following interrelated sub-processes: evaluating and re-evaluating educational experiences, developing professional self-efficacy and developing clinical competence. These sub-processes are influenced by the following factors: social values and norms, healthcare organization, management of new nurses, co-workers, patients and significant others and the nurse's own family and friends. These factors affect professional development directly, indirectly or as mediating influences and can lead to possible outcomes, as new nurses choose to remain in or leave the profession. The results underscore the importance of developing a professional nursing role within the new working context. To facilitate this professional development, new nurses need support from their nursing-school educators and their healthcare employers. The model described here will be the subject of further measurement and testing. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Background

Students' motivation and ways of engaging in their schoolwork are important for their performance, including passing exams. Attendance at learning activities has also been argued to be of major importance, although no causal relationship with passing exams has been established in nursing education.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to describe the impact of attendance at nonmandatory learning activities on attainment, in terms of passing or failing of exams, in nursing education courses including both mandatory and non-mandatory activities.

Design

A prospective quantitative design.

Setting

The nursing education programme at a Swedish university.

Participants

Nursing students (n = 361) from two courses and four classes within the nursing programme.

Methods

Attendance was registered at every non-mandatory teaching activity by asking the students to note their attendance on a list. Data such as sex, age, and whether the students had passed the exam were also collected for each course and each semester separately.

Results

Increased participation was associated with an increasing proportion of students passing the exam. The chance of passing the exam increased by 13% for every additional learning occasion attended. Logistic regression showed an OR of 5.4 for an attendance of 100%.

Conclusions

An increase in attendance gave a higher proportion of exam passes. Encouraging students to attend non-mandatory learning activities could be of value, and potentially contribute to an increased graduation rate for nursing students.

Background

Salutogenesis is a resource-oriented approach that focuses on health creation. With the shift in focus from healthcare to health, there is a need to develop salutogenic inquiry and capacity of future nurses to promote good health and well-being in the community.

Objective

This study explored nursing students' perspectives on utilising the salutogenic theory in the community for health promotion, including the scope, perceived benefits, and challenges of theory application.

Design

A qualitative study using framework analysis.

Setting

A tertiary institution in Singapore.

Participants

Nursing students who were taught the salutogenic theory for ‘Healthy Community Living’ module.

Methods

Data were gathered from four focus group discussions (n = 18) and 32 students' written assignments. They were analysed based on five components of knowledge framework.

Results

Four themes were identified: re-orienting healthcare for healthy living communities; ambivalent learning experiences; attracting early adopters of salutogenic paradigm; and practices for positive health development in complex systems: future directions. Findings reflected the value, versatility, and usefulness of introducing the salutogenic paradigm into the curriculum of healthcare education. Practical know-hows of applying the theory in community practice and development of health intervention were elicited.

Conclusion

Much work is needed to future-proof the next generation of nurses in embracing and unifying the concept of salutogenic science into the existing pathogenic-driven care model. The real challenge would be the continual support of nursing education and health system to provide salutogenic care in the community.

Geriatric nursing is generally not considered to be a popular branch of nursing among Swedish nursing students and registered nurses. It is, therefore, important for nurse educators and others with responsibilities for the development of nursing to pay attention to trends of importance for the care of the elderly. Attitudes - conceptualized as feelings, knowledge, and readiness to act - may be one important factor. It has been reported that feelings toward older people may change with experience, age and gender. The aim of this study was to measure feelings toward older people among nursing students and registered nurses. A convenience sample of 151 undergraduate nursing students and 41 registered nurses in Sweden participated in the study. Data were collected through Kogan's Old People scale. The results confirmed earlier findings and showed that limited previous experience of care of older people, age <25 years, and male gender were significant factors for showing less favourable feelings towards the aged. In the education of nurses, goal-directed experience of elderly care is recommended in order to create positive feelings towards and interest in older people among students. It is also suggested that special considerations should be given to very young students and male students.