The Integration of the Workable Range Model into a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course: a Practice-Based Case Study.

Didactic teaching about stress is part of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) curriculum. The content and methods of integrating conceptual teaching within the experiential pedagogy are rarely explored. Workable range is a model of stress and emotion regulation that illustrates patterns of physical, emotional and cognitive reactivity in relation to mindful presence. This is a qualitative case study of the inclusion of the workable range model into an MBSR course as a refinement of the didactic teaching about stress. The focus is to illuminate how the inclusion worked in practice. Ten staff, on a MBSR course in a higher educational setting, were recruited as participant researchers with an overlap between their own first-person investigation during the course and the research data. Adapted diagrams and written answers to two question schedules, completed as reflective exercises within the course, were analysed thematically using template analysis. This revealed how participant researchers engaged with and intuitively used the model to notice and describe their own patterns of feeling balanced or stressed and explore how they related to those experiences. How learning the model integrated with MBSR and the applicability of workable ranges as a teaching resource in MBSR is discussed. The study highlights questions about how conceptual and experiential teaching and learning interrelate in mindfulness-based interventions. There is scope for further research using mindfulness practice as a first-person methodology to investigate the processes within mindfulness-based programs.

Comparisons between the attitudes of student nurses and other health and social care students toward illicit drug use: An attitudinal survey.

In the context of a recent emphasis on compassion in the delivery of health care, the current study set out to measure the attitudes of different groups of health and social care students toward illicit drug users. Previous research has identified variations in the attitudes of different groups of health and social care professionals toward working with illicit drug users. Nurses, in particular, have been reported as holding moralistic or stereotypical views of illicit drug users. However, few studies have measured the attitudes of student nurses or compared their attitudes to other health and social care students. This article describes the use of a bespoke attitude scale to measure the attitudes of cohorts of student nurses, clinical psychology trainees, health and social care, social work and midwifery students at the start of their course (N=308). Results indicated that student nurses had the least tolerant attitudes, reinforcing the need for a specific educational focus on working with illicit drug users in nurse education. Variations between student groups indicate that Interprofessional Education can provide an opportunity to improve attitudes toward illicit drug users, particularly amongst student nurses.

Diversity and ethnicity in nurse education: the perspective of nurse lecturers.

This paper is a report on a qualitative study which considered the issue of how lecturers feel about teaching and managing the topic of culture and racism within their role as nurse educators. The issue of cultural diversity and the related issue of racism within nursing and society more generally means that the problem cannot be ignored since one of the central tenets of nursing is that care should be delivered in non-discriminatory ways. We interviewed a group of lecturers within a UK university to explore their views on the topic. We produced six themes: Culture; the existence of racism within nursing; challenging racism; political correctness; strategies adopted to address issues in the classroom and the presence of cultural diversity within the curriculum. We identified that the lecturers in our study were keen to address the issue but were also very concerned about their own abilities and confidence in this area.

Student nurses' attitudes to illicit drugs: a grounded theory study.

The aim of this research was to identify the factors that influence the attitudes of student nurses towards illicit drugs. This insight is important in providing a foundation for the development of educational approaches aimed at challenging what appear to be negative attitudes to illicit drug users within nursing. The absence of a testable hypothesis prior to the investigation led to the generation of theory from the data (inductive enquiry) with a constructivist approach to grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006), being employed. Data generation involved informal conversational interviews (n=12), semi-structured interviews (n=9), four focus groups and an audit of the education received by students (n=61) around substance misuse issues. The final grounded theory indicated that: Student nurses enter training with a wide range of personal experiences relating to illicit drug use. The influences of society's negative views and the image of drug use presented in the press appeared to be significant factors in developing their attitudes on the subject. In the absence of effective approaches to education, and given that many professionals in the practice environment appear to view illicit substance users in a negative way, it is likely that interventions with identified drug users will be influenced by negative attitudes.