Nursing students' perceptions of clinical teachers' use of empowering teaching behaviours: instrument psychometrics and application.

The authors present findings of 2nd year nursing students' (N = 352) perceptions of their clinical teachers' use of empowering teaching behaviours (ETB) and to highlight steps undertaken to establish psychometric properties of the Empowering Teaching Behaviours Questionnaire-Student (ETBQ-S). The authors identify a) the process involved in the adoption of the ETBQ-S, b) ETBQ-S validity procedures completed prior to instrument implementation, c) results of nursing students' responses to the ETBQ-S, d) criterion validity, and e) ETBQ-S confirmatory factor analysis findings conducted after study completion. The ETBQ-S reliably measures five facets of empowering actions that clinical teachers can employ with nursing students in practice to enhance their confidence, involve them in decision-making and goal setting, make learning meaningful, and help them to become more autonomous nurses.

Effects of clinical practice environments on clinical teacher and nursing student outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to use a cross-sectional survey design, with an integrated theoretical perspective, to examine clinical teachers' (n = 64) and nursing students' (n = 352) empowerment, teachers' and students' perceptions of teachers' use of empowering teaching behaviors, students' perceptions of nurses' practice behaviors, and students' confidence for practice in acute care settings. In this study, teachers and students were moderately empowered. Teachers reported using a high level of empowering teaching behaviors, which corresponded with students' perceptions of teachers' use of such behaviors. Teachers' empowerment predicted 21% of their use of empowering teaching behaviors. Students reported nurses as using a high level of professional practice behaviors. Students felt confident for professional nursing practice. The findings have implications for practice contexts related to empowering teaching-learning environments and self-efficacy.

Improving communication between doctors and breast cancer patients.

PURPOSE: We wanted to assess the effectiveness of intensive education for physicians compared with a traditional session on communicating with breast cancer patients. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in practices in London, Hamilton, and Toronto, Canada, with 17 family physicians, 16 surgeons, and 18 oncologists, and with 102 patients of the surgeons and oncologists. Doctors were randomized to 1 of 2 continuing education approaches: a traditional 2-hour version (control group), or a new 6-hour intensive version including exploring the patients' perspectives and reviewing videotapes and receiving feedback (intervention group). Communication behavior of the physicians was measured objectively both before and after the intervention. As well, 4 postintervention patient outcomes were measured, by design only for surgeons and oncologists: patient-centerdness of the visit, satisfaction, psychological distress, and feeling better. RESULTS: No significant differences were found on the communication score of the intervention vs the control physicians when controlling for preintervention communication scores. Intervention family physicians, however, had significantly higher communication subscores than control family physicians. Also, patients of the intervention surgeons and oncologists were significantly more satisfied (scores of 82.06 vs 77.78, P = .03) and felt better (88.2% vs 70.6%, P=.02) than patients of the control surgeons and oncologists when controlling for covariates and adjusting for clustering within doctor. CONCLUSIONS: The continuing medical education intervention was effective in terms of some but not all physician and patient outcomes.