Journal of professional nursing : official journal of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
The impact of a palliative care educational component on attitudes toward care of the dying in undergraduate nursing students.
Nurse educators have identified that historically nurses have not been prepared to care for dying patients. Research also has identified that nursing students have anxieties about death, dying, and caring for dying patients. Several factors have been identified as affecting nurses' and nursing students' attitudes toward care of the dying. ⋯ Results of this study indicate that education can have a positive effect on nursing students' attitudes toward care of the dying. Nursing students in the intervention group had a significant positive increase in their attitudes toward care of the dying after the intervention. The attitude change increased slightly after a 4-week period.
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This article describes the conceptualization and implementation of an academic-service partnership for a baccalaureate nursing program. The partnership began its fifth year in the fall of 2002; 107 students have entered the partnership since its inception. ⋯ Students in the partnership have a unique opportunity for learning the art and science of nursing in a complex, integrated health care system with a strong emphasis on quality of environment, providers, and care delivery. A longitudinal program evaluation is underway, based on an American Association of Colleges of Nursing publication, the vision and goals of the School of Nursing, and the construct of organizational socialization.
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Discharge planning is an urgently needed nursing intervention. The purpose of this article is to investigate the importance of patient and family preferences and participation for discharge planning and to describe the pilot testing of an instrument to measure patient preferences for discharge planning. The results identified a lack of congruence between patients' and caregivers' preferences, suggesting the need to assess both patients' and families' preferences early and incorporate this in discharge planning that begins at admission to a hospital. The instrument, Patient Participation Preferences Assessment (PPPA), is shown to be a useful, reliable, and valid instrument that can be used in conjunction with the companion instrument, Family Preferences Assessment (FPA), to assist nurses with comprehensive discharge planning for greater effectiveness.
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Preceptors are clinically based nurses that agree to participate with nursing students in an effort to provide them with opportunities to reinforce their knowledge with clinical experience. Preceptors serve as nursing role models to students and can facilitate their understanding and socialization into the reality of nursing. Studies on preceptorships have focused traditionally on the experience of precepting from the perspectives of student, employer, and preceptor. ⋯ Student learning and clinical experience can be influenced directly by the leadership characteristics that a preceptor possesses. To make the experience of precepting positive and beneficial for preceptor, student, and faculty, an examination and discussion of the potential preceptor's leadership style should be conducted. Situational leadership and the four different styles of leadership identified by Hersey and Blanchard provide a useful model for identifying leadership traits in preceptors that nursing faculty will find useful as they seek to match preceptors in a way that will facilitate knowledge acquisition and application for nursing students in the clinical setting.
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The present nursing faculty shortage is linked to the general nursing shortage. Without enough nurse educators to teach the increasing number of nurses that are needed, the health of U. S. residents is at stake. ⋯ Linking the general nursing shortage with the faculty shortage may provide a stronger case for public policy and funding initiatives. There are signs that some initiatives are working. Present faculty need to maintain a culture of hope while potential solutions are being implemented.