Nurse education today
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This paper reports a questionnaire-based investigation into the knowledge sources used by nurses in two Turkish university hospitals, and whether these knowledge sources were related to sociodemographic variables. 78.5% of the nurses said that practice should be based on evidence and 75.9% stated that this evidence should come from research. 80.7% stated that evidence-based practice was useful. However, evidence that was not based on research constituted the first three most frequently used sources of knowledge. Sources of evidence-based on research were detected as being in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th positions regarding the frequency of use. The nurses expressed a belief that nursing practices should be based on evidence, but did not reflect this belief in their behavior.
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This article reports on a theme emerging from a focused ethnography examining the professional socialization of undergraduate fourth year nursing students during a rural hospital preceptored clinical experience. Nursing students and preceptors geographically dispersed over a 640,000 square kilometer rural area participated in this study. ⋯ Having a positive rural-based experience also has the potential for recruiting new staff. These preliminary findings suggest that student preparation for the rural hospital preceptorship includes cognitive and psychological preparation, as well as the acquisition of common advanced clinical skills.
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Nurse education today · Jul 2008
Exploring clinical nursing experiences: listening to student nurses.
Student nurses spend one half of their educational programme in the clinical area. The success of an educationally sound clinical placement is crucial to forming a professional nursing identity that will encompass the seen and 'unseen' aspects of the nurses' role. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical nursing environment through the perceptions of first year student nurses. ⋯ Results suggest that these student nurses were disillusioned with the reality of clinical nursing and that their expectations of nursing were not realised. They perceived that paperwork, completing tasks and meeting targets were dominant features of nursing work at the expense of patient contact and communication. A majority indicated that nursing was not as caring as they expected and vowed to hold on to their personal values of caring about patients and forming communicative, interpersonal relationships with them.
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Nurse teacherhood is usually examined from the perspectives of nurse teachers' tasks, roles, skills and managing. The purpose of this study was to discuss how nurse teachers themselves describe their teacherhood. The purpose was also to generate a substantive theory of nurse teacherhood, its development, changes and manifestation. ⋯ Nurse teacherhood was found to be a dynamic process influenced by processes of change in the organisation, the operating culture of the health care working community, nurse teachers' professional self-esteem, the focus of nurse teachers' competence, their relationship with students, the future of their profession and requirements for staying in the profession. Commitment emerged as the core feature of nurse teacherhood. It was possible to distinguish eight types of commitment: (1) searching for new content in one's position, (2) being adapted to one's position, (3) trying to advance in one's position, (4) having found one's position, (5) searching for one's position, (6) withdrawing from one's position, (7) being satisfied with one's position and (8) being uncertain about one's position.
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Nurse education today · May 2008
Student nurses' attitudes to vulnerable groups: a study examining the impact of a social inclusion module.
Front line health care professionals have a responsibility to ensure that excluded groups and vulnerable people have equitable access to health care services. This obligation is stated explicitly in the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Professional Conduct (2004). Consequently, educationalists involved in the delivery of nurse education have sought to promote the principles of socially inclusive and anti-oppressive practice throughout the curriculum. ⋯ This study identified important gaps within the current curriculum and the need for educators in the field of Health and Social Care to concentrate efforts throughout the curriculum on challenging stereotypical views and attitudes rather than assuming that students can understand the complex concepts of social inclusion in a stand alone module. The students who took part in the study generally held positive views and values and the module was to some extent able to shape their perspective on vulnerable people.