Aims To propose a policy framework for nursing education to foster compassion in nursing students. Design A critical review. Data sources Literature was searched in CINAHL, PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar and sources published from January 2008 - April 2018 were reviewed. Review methods We screened abstracts and full-texts using specific inclusion criteria, developed summary tables for data extraction and synthesized data logically to develop the framework. Results Twenty-nine sources were reviewed. Recognizing, accepting, and alleviating patients' suffering are direct indicators of compassionate care. Three policy directions were identified: ensure the nursing curriculum has an appropriate balance of teaching-learning strategies that target learning in the affective domain, directly promote the use of reflection and the development of reflective thinking in students as an approach to enhance excellence in clinical practice and integrate information and assess students' understanding and expression of compassion throughout the nursing curriculum. Conclusion Compassion is expressed when nurses authentically work to understand patients' suffering and become sensitive to their experiences. Future research should focus on developing strategies that align with the affective domain and use reflection to optimize nursing students' experiential learning. Impact Policies are needed for cultivating a compassionate care culture and for fostering students' compassion, but no guidelines exist for nursing institutions. Targeting the affective learning domain, facilitating reflection, and integrating compassionate care indicators in clinical learning experiences can be useful. Therefore, nursing institutions can use these findings to integrate and measure compassionate care in clinical and educational curricula to foster students' compassion.

Proposing a policy framework for nursing education for fostering compassion in nursing students: A critical review.

One approach to nursing is to value person-centred care as the preferred way of caring. Undergraduate nursing education may include specific courses that facilitate the development of person-centred care in students but it is not known which learning experiences students report as influential in this respect or which components of the courses contribute.The aims of this empirical study is to describe the perceived learning experiences gained during a one-semester course and their impact on the development of person-centred care in undergraduate nursing students, and to gain insight into which course components contributed to this development.
In:  In: International Practice Development Journal 8 (1)

The perceived learning experiences of undergraduate nursing students during a one-semester course on person-centred care

South African student nurses' experiences of professional nurses' role-modelling of caring.

Background: Medical imaging has been driven by technological advancements. However, the concept of caring has now become a significant element in the healthcare profession. Within a South African context, there are principles that emphasise the importance of people and service delivery: the Batho Pele Principles and Ubuntu. Now more than ever, there is a greater need for a patient-centred caring environment. Therefore, there is an expectation for sonographers to be adaptive to this new environment. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the sonographers’ experiences of being caring professionals. Setting: Sonographers who work within private practices in Gauteng were part of this study. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, contextual, phenomenological research design was used. Focus group interviews were conducted with qualified sonographers registered with the HPCSA. Thematic analysis was used to code data into themes and categories. Results: Four themes emerged: the effects of a caring relationship between a sonographer and a patient; circumstances limiting a sonographer in being a caring professional; sonographers’ approach to caring; educational readiness of sonographers to be caring professionals. Conclusion: The participants in this study explained and shared their understanding of being caring professionals. They shared many stories regarding trusting relationships with patients. However, as a caring professional, many challenges were encountered, both physically and emotionally. Recommendations such as reflective journals and the practices of Jean Watson’s theory of transpersonal caring are cited to focus on the practice and education that may improve caring among sonographers.

https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/download/1409/pdf

Sonographers' experiences of being a caring professional within private practice in the province of Gauteng.

A theoretical association exists between caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We wanted to gain a deeper understanding about how the relationships translated to the perceptions and practices of nurse educators. We developed a survey of selected and free response items to gather a combination of quantitative and qualitative data related to nurse educators’ perceptions and practices related to caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We distributed an invitation to participate in our online survey research project through direct communication with a sample of nurse educators and posted the request to a handful of nurse educator social media sites and listservs. Forty-six nurse educators fully completed our survey. Findings include a mixture of positive perceptions about learning caring and curiosity, insights about the importance of caring and curiosity in nursing, and practices that included promoting critical thinking and curiosity among nurses. We follow the results with a discussion of implications for nurse education.

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Connecting critical thinking, caring, and curiosity in nurse education: Exploring the beliefs and practices of nurse educators

Background: Assuring undergraduate nursing students are caring and compassionate is an important goal of nursing education programs.  Some research has been conducted to examine interventions to enhance nursing students’ levels of caring. Methods: We conducted an integrative review of caring research and found fifteen articles reporting educational interventions designed to enhance caring among undergraduate pre-licensure nursing students. We reviewed each for how caring was taught and the student outcomes. Results: Our analysis indicates that caring can be taught to nursing students. Effective educational interventions included engaging students in authentic conditions that required them to provide care, reflection on the care they provided, and faculty members role modeling caring behaviors. Conclusions: Implications for nursing educators is that their curricular and instructional approaches are critical to enhancing nursing students’ levels of caring.

/pdf/fostering-caring-in-undergraduate-nursing-students-an-4h78xpre14.pdf

Tory Zigmond

Papers

Fostering caring in undergraduate nursing students: An integrative review