Publications

Objectives

The purpose of this analysis is to develop the concept of sense of belonging in nursing. The secondary purpose is to identify the antithesis or direct opposite beyond the negative consequences related to a lack of belonging in nursing.

Design

Rodgers' evolutionary method guided the analysis and advancement of sense of belonging in nursing.

Data sources

Following PRISMA guidelines, peer-reviewed English articles and dissertations were reviewed from PubMed, ERIC, CINAHL, and PsychINFO. Forty-seven articles describing sense of belonging in the nursing profession, both academic and workforce, were included.

Review methods

Inductive thematic analysis was used to determine recurring themes of the antecedents, attributes, consequences, and antithesis of belonging in nursing.

Results

A welcoming, positive atmosphere encouraging a culture of mentorship is key to developing an environment of belonging. The attributes of belonging include being trusted, valued, and an accepted part of the team, and encouraging a connection to the community. Nurses and nursing students have improved confidence, self-esteem, and motivation to learn when a sense of belonging is present. They feel supported and respected in the environment. However, historically minoritized students and nurses report discrimination, bias, and condescension resulting in feeling invisible, isolated, excluded, and neglected. Nurses and nursing students feel invisible, isolated, excluded, and neglected without a sense of belonging.

Conclusion

Developing a sense of belonging in nurses and nursing students is critical to our profession. Further research is essential to develop interventions and strategies for cultivating a sense of belonging in nursing.

Objective

To examine women’s experiences of pelvic congestion syndrome (PCS) pain.

Design

Descriptive, cross-sectional.

Setting

Online questionnaires in a Facebook PCS support group.

Participants

Convenience sample of 143 women who self-identified as being diagnosed with PCS.

Methods

We recruited women through a social media support group and invited them to participate in a self-reported questionnaire. We collected demographic information and used the McGill Pain Questionnaire to elicit responses related to pain quality, pain intensity, quality of life, and satisfaction with health care. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients.

Results

Respondents characterized their PCS pain as exhausting, stabbing, sharp, shooting, and tender. Respondents indicated that 19 of 24 daily activities increased PCS pain, whereas only 5 reduced PCS pain. Pain intensity was negatively related to the quality of life, health satisfaction, sleep, and sexual relationships.

Conclusion

Chronic pelvic pain from PCS severely affected quality of life among respondents. These findings suggest a difference in the presentation of PCS from historical pain depictions and further highlight the need to identify pain profiles to increase timely and precise diagnosis. Further research is needed to evaluate interventions to increase the quality of life for women with PCS.

Introduction: Nurses use physical touch to interact with patients and address their needs. Human touch benefits social development, stress/anxiety reduction, and rapport building. Touch has been a part of nursing care for centuries, however nurses’ perceptions of expressive touch are not easily ascertained from the literature. Literature currently offers one review on the perceptions of various medical professionals regarding touch of all kinds. No reviews specific to the nurses’ perception of expressive touch exist. This integrative review provides a greater understanding of nurses’ perceptions of expressive touch. Methods: Using Cooper’s steps for integrative review, CINAHL, Medline, Academic Search Premier, and Complimentary Index were searched from 2000-2022; using search term expressive touch or caring touch or compassionate touch and nurse/nurses/nursing and perception or perspective. Results: Of 283 articles identified, 22 articles remained for full-text review after duplicate removal and application of inclusion/exclusion criteria. Five topics on nurses’ perceptions of expressive touch were identified: Comfort with touch and job satisfaction, expressive touch as an essential part of nursing practice, expressive touch as a form of compassion and/or communication, the impact of expressive touch on the humanization of patients in the nurses’ perception, and nurse discomfort with expressive touch. Conclusion: This integrative review provides findings that assist in understanding nurses’ perceptions of expressive touch. Further research should examine the impact of gender, education, and experiences on nurses’ perceptions as they use expressive touch in nursing practice.

Aim: This study examined the frequency of incivility for undergraduate nursing students and the relationship between staff nurse incivility and nursing students’ sense of belonging. Factors between program semester and students' body mass index (BMI) to staff nurse incivility and students’ sense of belonging were assessed.

Background: Sense of belonging enhances belonging development to the profession. However, no studies address the relationship between incivility and nursing students’ sense of belonging.

Methods: A cross-sectional design assessed the relationship between staff nurse incivility and undergraduate nursing students’ sense of belonging to the nursing profession. An online survey was administered to 123 pre-licensure junior and senior undergraduate nursing students from February 1, 2021, to May 5, 2021. Correlation coefficient, descriptive statistics, Fisher r-to-z transformation, 95% confidence intervals were calculated.

Results: Staff nurse incivility inversely correlated with undergraduate nursing students’ sense of belonging (rs=−.358; p <.001). American Indian or Alaskan Native students reported the highest mean frequency of incivility (1.25 ± .421). There were no significant differences in correlations based on semester or BMI.

Conclusion: Staff nurse incivility is inversely associated with sense of belonging in students. Further research is needed to test interventions mitigating the effects of incivility on belonging.

Background and Purpose: While sense of belonging is essential for human motivation, impaired belonging among nurses can impact the care and safety of patients. This article reports the development and psychometric testing of the Sense of Belonging in Nursing School (SBNS) scale to assess nursing students’ sense of belonging in three different environments: Clinical, classroom, and among the student cohort.

Method: Principal component exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to determine the construct validity on the 36-item SBNS scale with a sample of 110 undergraduate nursing students. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the scale’s internal consistency.

Results: The scale was reduced to 19-items with high internal consistency (α = 0.914). Principal component analysis then identified four factors (sub-scales) with high internal consistency: Clinical staff (α = 0.904), clinical instructor (α = 0.926), classroom (α = 0.902), and classmates/cohort (α = 0.952).

Conclusion: The SBNS scale is a reliable and valid tool to measure sense of belonging across three environments among nursing students. Further research is needed to determine the scale’s predictive validity.

Clinical experiences are critical for undergraduate nursing students to apply didactic learning experiences and meet the core competencies established for licensure. However, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic severely limited access to clinical experiences for undergraduate nursing students. The VA Home Telehealth program provided unique clinical experiences for veteran undergraduate nursing students, increased the use of technology, and limited the adverse effects of the pandemic in a rural, vulnerable population. This collaboration was crucial in helping students progress with their nursing education during a time of crisis.

Objectives: Escape rooms are becoming a popular teaching method in a variety of fields and settings, but have not been examined for their effectiveness in nursing education. The aim of this integrative review was to map trends in escape rooms in nursing research and evaluate support for using this innovative, simulation-based teaching method.

Design, data sources, and review methods: Using Whittemore and Kanfl's framework, this integrative review analyzed the use of simulation-based escape rooms in nursing and nursing education. Results were refined using inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated with use of the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Databases searched were PubMed, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Google Scholar, and ERIC.

Results: A total of 18 studies were included. Common categories identified included student satisfaction with escape rooms and barriers of cost and time to educators. Desired outcomes of the studies reviewed focused on teamwork, perceived learning or increased confidence, or increase in knowledge. Optimal group size and theoretical support recommendations for escape rooms are lacking with the need for further research.

Conclusions: Escape rooms are effective at improving knowledge in a variety of nursing education topics, and their use has been well-received in a variety of nursing and professional health students. Long-term outcomes have not been assessed. There is need for more research in assessing ideal group size when using escape rooms in education settings, more rigorous study design to determine effectiveness of escape rooms to produce education-focused outcomes, and more consensus on appropriate theoretical frameworks that can guide the implementation and study of escape rooms in practice.

Background: A significant challenge facing nursing is new graduate RNs' unreadiness for practice. To better understand the issue, this study presents the challenges nursing faculty encounter in preparing nursing students for clinical practice through semi-structured interviews.

Method: Eight faculty from a private midwestern university's prelicensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program participated in the study. A modified version of Colaizzi's data analysis method was used to interpret the data.

Results: Three main interrelated themes were identified: Facilitating Learning Among Today's Nursing Students, Teaching in an Era of Information Explosion and Health Care Reform, and Providing High-Quality Clinical Education.

Conclusion: Findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges in preparing competent future nurses and offer insight into factors influencing the underpreparation of some new graduate BSN

Aim: The aim of this study is to explore the gap between incivility in the workplace and academia and develop a connection to the psychosocial distress effects on the victims.

Background: While incivility in nursing has reached epidemic proportions in the past decade, the current definitions of incivility are limited to the workplace or academia and lack consideration of the consequences related to the social well-being of the victim.

Design: Rodgers' evolutionary method was used in this study.

Data Source: Following the PRISMA guidelines, articles were reviewed from PubMed and CINAHL between 2008 to 2019. Twenty articles describing incivility faced by staff nurses, student nurses, academic faculty, and nursing administrators were included in the final analysis.

Review Methods: Inductive thematic analysis was used to determine the antecedents, attributes, and consequences of incivility in nursing.

Results: Findings included a culture of incivility and power gradients as antecedents. The attributes of incivility were verbal or non-verbal behaviors that demean, dismiss, or exclude the individual. Consequences of incivility are psychosocial and physiological distress.

Conclusion: A broader definition of incivility may be appropriate. Further research is needed to determine interventions to mitigate the effects of incivility.

Objective:

MyPlate, a tool for communicating the federal nutrition guidelines in the USA, may contribute to healthy diets and behaviours, yet whether and how it is used by teachers and school principals is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine (1) the prevalence of using nutrition lessons and MyPlate guidelines by K-12 teachers and principals; (2) barriers to, and facilitators of, using them; and (3) suggested strategies to improve their use.

Methods:

A convenience sample of teachers and principals (n = 124) from a Midwestern US school district were surveyed.

Results:

The majority of respondents were women (88%), elementary school teachers (76%) and Caucasian (90%). A total of 18% (n = 16) of teachers included nutrition in lesson plans. A total of 17% (n = 15) of teachers used MyPlate in their classrooms, primarily through handouts and group activities. Being a parent and being more familiar with MyPlate were positively associated with including nutrition in lessons, and income and higher education were inversely associated with including nutrition in lessons. Barriers included lack of time, knowledge and resources, and facilitators included believing nutrition was important, nutrition being part of the curriculum and personal interest. Suggested strategies to improve use of MyPlate included introducing the MyPlate curriculum into health, physical education or other classes; using MyPlate messages in the cafeteria; and posting signage around the school.

Conclusion:

MyPlate use was low in this sample of teachers and principals in a Midwestern US school district. Handouts, group activities, signage and curriculum integration could potentially increase schools’ use of the resource. Strategies should be developed to reduce the barriers for using MyPlate. Future research should examine a more diverse sample of teachers and strategies to integrate MyPlate into curriculum.