The experiences of nurse educators in establishing a teaching practice in the care of older persons: A focused ethnography study.

BACKGROUND: Gerontological nursing is not a career choice for most new graduates. Nurse educators, who influence students' career decisions, lack expertise in older person care. The academic culture may affect educators developing gerontological expertise. PURPOSE: The study explored the culture of a Canadian pre-licensure nursing education program in relation to educators' expertise in gerontological nursing. METHODS: In a focused ethnography, 22 nurse educators/researchers/administrators participated in interviews and/or observations conducted from March 2018 to December 2018. Content analysis of interview transcripts and fieldnotes occurred concurrently with data collection. RESULTS: Themes characterizing the culture were: Structure and Hierarchy, Losing Gerontology, Teaching Challenges, and Valuing Older Persons and Their Care. Participants felt: a hierarchy limited gerontologists' support for undergraduate educators and the curriculum; the integrated curriculum reduced the focus on gerontology; limited professional development opportunities and excessive workload constrained building gerontology expertise; and valuing older persons and their care influenced access to gerontology resources. CONCLUSIONS: The culture of a pre-licensure nursing program impacted educators building expertise in older person care. More research is needed to overcome barriers that constrain educators' proficiency in gerontological nursing. Increasing the number of educators adept in gerontology will develop nurse graduates with an appreciation for working with older persons.

Perspectives about Interprofessional Collaboration and Patient-Centred Care.

Interprofessional collaboration is understood to improve efficiencies and quality of care but is associated with challenges such as professionals' differing routines, knowledge, and identities, as well as professional hierarchies and time constraints. Given these challenges, there is limited understanding of how professionals collaborate effectively in providing patient-centred care. This study, with a convergence triangulation mixed-methods study design, explored interprofessional staffs' perceptions of interprofessional collaboration and patient-centred care when working with hospitalized older adults. Thirty-six staff responded to a survey which included the Patient-Centred Care measure and the Modified Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration; we also interviewed 14 nursing staff. Although all scores suggested a high value was placed on interprofessional collaboration, scores were low related to activities that facilitated team processes. We identified three themes from the data: knowing the patient/family, functional needs, and communication processes. Staff identified daily rounds with interprofessional teams as supportive of interprofessional collaboration and patient-centred-care.

Factors affecting undergraduate nurse educators' knowledge, skills or attitudes about older persons and their care: An integrative review.

BACKGROUND: Nurses are increasingly expected to provide care for older persons; however, there are too few nurse educators with expertise in older person care to ensure students graduate with the requisite competencies. METHODS: An integrative review, using Whittemore and Knafl's framework, was undertaken to identify and synthesise evidence about factors affecting nurse educators' knowledge, skills or attitudes about older persons and their care. RESULTS: Forty-four articles met the inclusion criteria. All but three papers originated in the USA. Content analysis yielded three central themes: external-level factors, employer-level factors and individual-level factors. Findings demonstrated that external funding from philanthropic organisations and government agencies supported many of the national, regional and site-specific initiatives, which were, in many cases, underpinned by professional regulatory frameworks. Negative attitudes of administrators and reduced budgets of educational institutions impeded the availability of such initiatives. Negative attitudes of individual educators towards older person care and the specialty of gerontology constrained their pursuit of such learning, as did their lack of awareness of current gerontology resources. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of educators with gerontology knowledge, skills and requisite attitudes requires a focused effort from external and professional bodies, and from educational institutions to ensure the resources are available to enhance educator expertise in gerontology. Rigorous study addressing the factors influencing educators' knowledge, skills or attitudes towards older persons and their care is required. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Addressing the lack of nurse educator expertise in gerontology could help to ensure new nurses have the required competencies to provide quality older person care.

The feasibility of implementing education on older person care to practice on medical units: Nurses' perceptions and the influence of practice context.

AIM: As part of a larger primary study on evidence-informed practice with hospitalised older people, we aimed to (a) examine nursing staffs' perceptions of the interactive geriatric educational intervention and to explore how perceptions of their work context may influence their ability to enact the evidence-informed assessment and care approaches discussed during the educational sessions and (b) compare differences in perceptions of context between RNs, LPNs and HCAs. METHOD: A survey-based evaluation that used both closed and open-ended questions was conducted as part of an interactive educational intervention on cognitive impairment and managing responsive behaviours. Data were gathered on participants' perceptions of the education intervention and organisational context. RESULTS: Findings from this study suggest when education is tailored to nurses' articulated educational needs, it is well received; however, barriers to implementation exist. Assessment of the context by using a standardised survey tool to get the nursing staffs' perceptions of organisational context revealed strengths in leadership support and day-to-day interactions with other nurses and healthcare professionals, but potential barriers related to lack of facilitation to transfer new knowledge into practice existed. CONCLUSION: Providing evidence-based education related to care of older patients and evaluating nursing staffs' perceptions of the education and their context has laid the groundwork for a long-term relationship with the managers and nursing staff on the participating medical units. Further investigation about how best to incorporate the facilitator role into the medical units to support evidence-based practices with older patients is warranted.  IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: While nurses are receptive to new knowledge, the unpredictable workload of acute care creates challenges to implementing this new knowledge. Assessment of contextual factors that influence evidence-informed practice facilitates planning for implementation of new knowledge and support practice change.

Nursing practice with hospitalised older people: Safety and harm.

BACKGROUND: Nursing teams work with hospitalised older people in institutions, which prioritise a biomedical model of care. This model does not fit the needs of older people because it emphasises efficacy and a narrow definition of patient safety, but does not prioritise functional needs. Nursing care is provided around the clock within the context of fiscal restraints as well as negative societal and nursing perspectives about ageing and old people. Yet, nursing perceptions of managing safety and potential harms to older patients within these hospital institutions are not well understood. METHODS: An integrative review was conducted to examine nursing perspectives of safety and harm related to hospitalised older people. RESULTS: The majority of included papers focused on restraint use. Findings reveal that nurses are using restraints and limiting mobility as strategies to manage their key priority of keeping older patients safe, reflecting a narrow conceptualisation of safety. Policy, administrative support and individual nurse characteristics influence restraint use. Safety policies that nurses interpret as preventing falls can encourage the use of restraints and limiting mobility, both of which result in functional losses to older people. CONCLUSIONS: This complex issue requires attention from clinical nurses, leaders, policy makers and researchers to shift the focus of care to preservation and restoration of function for older people in hospital as a safety priority. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Clinical leaders and nursing teams should engage in developing processes of care that incorporate maintaining and restoring older people's function.

The educational needs of nursing staff when working with hospitalised older people.

OBJECTIVES: To examine nursing staffs' geriatric knowledge, perceptions about interprofessional collaboration and patient-centred care, and perceived learning needs related to working with hospitalised older people. METHOD: A triangulation mixed methods design was used. A survey was administered to nursing staff that contained the Knowledge About Older Patients Quiz, the patient-centered Care measure and the Modified Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration measure. Interviews were conducted to understand nursing staffs' learning needs. Survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Interview data were analysed using content analysis. Survey and interview data were then compared and contrasted. RESULTS: Twenty-two nursing staff (response rate 26%) completed surveys and 14 participated in interviews. The mean knowledge about older patients score was 22.95, indicating moderately high gerontological knowledge. The mean scores on the patient-centered Care measure and Modified Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration were moderately high at 3.75 and 3.86, respectively. Themes developed from analysis of the interview data were as follows: complex vulnerable population, clinical care concerns and working as a team. In spite of scores on knowledge surveys, nursing staff identified learning needs related to managing the responsive behaviours of older patients with cognitive impairment, chemical and physical restraints, mobility and continence. CONCLUSIONS: There was an incongruence between survey and interview data as nursing staff reported gaps in their knowledge despite moderately high scores on the Knowledge about Older People Quiz. Further research is needed to understand additional factors that influence nurses' educational needs.

Clinical nurse specialists' approaches in selecting and using evidence to improve practice.

UNLABELLED: ABSTRACT Background: Evidence-based practice (EBP) has become the desired standard within all health disciplines because the integration of the best evidence into clinical practice is fundamental to optimizing patient outcomes. The valuing of research and research-based knowledge as the basis for decision making is explicit in current discourse in the health sciences. Despite the desires of proponents of EBP for use of evidence derived through research, nurses prefer to use knowledge derived from experience and social interactions. The clinical nurse specialist (CNS) is in the ideal position to act as a link between evidence and practice; however, a paucity of knowledge exists on how CNSs select and use evidence in their daily practice. PURPOSE: The purpose of this descriptive, cross-sectional study was to examine the approaches used by CNSs to select and use evidence in their daily practice. METHOD: A telephone survey, developed for this study from a pilot study conducted by the principal investigator (PI), was used to elicit responses from a purposive sample of CNSs living in a western Canadian province who were willing to be contacted for research, and who had practiced clinically as CNSs within the past year. A response rate of 75% (n = 94) was achieved. Descriptive statistics were used to describe and compare the variables of interest. RESULTS: Literature tailored to particular specialties and personal experiences were reported as the most frequently accessed sources of evidence. This evidence was most often used to facilitate improvements in patient care, and least often used to develop further research proposals. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that although CNSs select and use evidence from a wide variety of sources, further development of their capacity to retrieve and transfer knowledge may increase the uptake of research findings in nursing practice.