An Online Competency-Based Spiritual Care Education Tool for Oncology Nurses.

OBJECTIVE: The importance of spiritual care for the nursing profession has been long established. In many health care settings, including oncology, patients facing illness, suffering, and imminent death can struggle with existential questions of purpose and meaning-making. Recent research provided a competency-based educational framework to prepare nurses and nursing students to address these spiritual needs. DATA SOURCES: This qualitative study evaluated the impact of the implementation of online educational tools across four nursing bachelor's programs to acquire competencies focused on addressing spiritual care needs. CONCLUSION: Results showed that the tool added to the awareness of students and impacted among between students, teachers, and patient. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE: The results underscored the need for structural and methodical implementation of technically challenging online tools because this impacts the feasibility and applicability of blended learning.

Ethical considerations regarding the inclusion of children in nursing research.

Evidence-based nursing practice is based on three pillars: the available research, known preferences of the patient or patient group and the professional experience of the nurse. For all pillars, research is the tool to expand the evidence we have, but when implementing evidence-based practice in paediatric nursing two of the pillars demand that children are included as respondents: practice research on the nursing interventions in paediatrics and the preferences of patients, something recognized by scholars and practitioners. But including a vulnerable group as children in nursing research raises specific ethical issues that need to be considered by researchers. What are ethical considerations that are currently raised about doing research with children and what do we learn by synthesizing the narrative of these studies of why the issues are raised and which solutions can be offered for these issues? In this article, considerations on three ethical principles according to the Belmont report are described by examining recent research. Twenty-one studies were found addressing relevant ethical aspects including vulnerability, gaining consent, designing quantitative or qualitative research methods and considerations regarding the execution of the study. Ethical considerations should be much more a case of continuous awareness and attitude, then box-ticking exercise, although there are sufficient international guidelines available specifically for research that includes children to aid researchers.