Educational needs of direct care workers in long-term care facilities providing mealtime assistance to older adults with dementia.

BACKGROUND: Older adults with dementia in long-term care facilities often encounter challenges in self-feeding owing to cognitive and physical impairments. Although direct care workers play a crucial role in facilitating mealtime activities, they lack adequate and specific training. To develop an effective educational training program for this purpose, it is essential to understand the educational needs of direct care workers providing meal assistance. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the educational needs prioritized by direct care workers in long-term care facilities, regarding providing eating assistance to older adults with dementia. METHODS: Adopting a mixed-methods approach, this study combined quantitative analysis using Borich's needs assessment and locus for focus models with qualitative insights from focus group interviews. Participants comprised 174 direct care workers and five nursing managers from various long-term care facilities in South Korea. RESULTS: This study identified four main educational priorities: enhancing knowledge regarding swallowing function, understanding institutional support mechanisms, applying multisensory stimulation techniques, and addressing food forgetfulness in older adults with dementia. These findings were aligned with the qualitative data that emphasized the necessity of training in these specific areas to improve the quality of meal assistance provided to this vulnerable population. CONCLUSION: The findings underscore the critical need for focused educational programs that equip direct care workers with the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively assist older adults with dementia during mealtime. This study advocates the implementation of continuous education and training initiatives led by nursing management to improve the meal assistance environment for older adults with dementia, thereby enhancing their overall care and quality of life.

Description of the mealtime of older adults with dementia in a long-term care facility: A video analysis.

This study analyzed the mealtime structure of older adults with dementia in long-term care facilities. The study conducted video observations at 2 long-term care facilities with 10 residents and 24 staff members, resulting in 41 dyads. The average mealtime duration was 12.21 ± 5.16 minutes; the average time of a single intake was 0.21 ± 0.21 minutes; and the median of the eating interval was 0.17 minutes. The average verbal assistance time was 1.41 ± 1.31 minutes; the average verbal assistance frequency was short (23.92 ± 15.50 times). During mealtime, residents had an average of 5.00 ± 4.07 instances of failing to eat properly. The video analysis emphasized the necessity of implementing a mealtime assistance program that incorporates patient-centered education for the staff and ensures sufficient staffing to provide high-quality meals for residents in long-term care facilities.

Exploration of Cyberethics in Health Professions Education: A Scoping Review.

As digital technologies rapidly integrate into Health Professions Education (HPE), understanding cyberethics is increasingly crucial. This scoping review explores the pedagogy of cyberethics in HPE, highlighting a significant gap in explicit definitions and conceptualizations. Additionally, the absence of specific theoretical frameworks in most documents raises concerns about research progression. Only four articles introduce educational interventions in cyberethics, indicating a promising avenue for future research. While comprehensive search methods are employed, limitations, including language biases, exist. Future investigations should broaden the discourse to encompass ethical implications of emerging technologies within HPE. Cultivating comprehensive, culturally sensitive, and inclusive guidelines is vital for ethical digital practices in the health care community.

Cyberethics in nursing education: Ethical implications of artificial intelligence.

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly generative AI (Gen AI), becomes increasingly prevalent in nursing education, it is paramount to address the ethical implications of their implementation. This article explores the realm of cyberethics (a field of applied ethics that focuses on the ethical, legal, and social implications of cybertechnology), highlighting the ethical principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and explicability as a roadmap for facilitating AI integration into nursing education. Research findings suggest that ethical dilemmas that challenge these five principles can emerge within the context of nursing education; however, adherence to these very principles, which is essential to improving patient care, can offer solutions to these dilemmas. To ensure the ethical and responsible use of Gen AI in nursing education, these principles must be woven into the fabric of curricula, and appropriate guidelines must be developed. Nurse educators have a pivotal role in strategizing comprehensive approaches for ethical AI integration, establishing clear guidelines, and instilling critical thinking among students. Fostering lifelong learning and adaptability is key to ensuring that future nurses can successfully navigate the constantly evolving landscape of health care technology. Future research should investigate the long-term impacts of AI utilization on learning outcomes and ethical decision-making.

A systematic review of videoconferencing in health professions education: the digital divide revisited in the COVID-19 era.

OBJECTIVES: During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators shifted from traditional lectures to videoconferencing. This systematic review explored the use of videoconferencing as a teaching tool in response to the pandemic as well as issues related to digital equity and inclusion. CONTENT: The review was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute for Systematic Reviews methodology and reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 statement. SUMMARY: A total of nine studies met eligibility criteria. The participants in the included studies were medical students from various parts of the world. Technical difficulties and lack of human interactions were identified as barriers to learning through videoconferencing. OUTLOOK: To achieve full success, pedagogical videoconferencing must prioritize digital equity and a universal design for learning. Although useful for maintaining education during the pandemic, in the future, videoconferencing will present challenges related to the digital divide as well as opportunities as a teaching tool for nurse educators globally.

The Use of Metaverse in Nursing Education: An Umbrella Review.

BACKGROUND: Given the wide range of metaverse technologies, there is a need to synthesize evidence of metaverse pedagogy used effectively for nursing education. PURPOSE: This umbrella review synthesized systematic reviews on the use of metaverse in nursing education. METHODS: A search was performed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Education Full Text. This umbrella review was conducted with reference to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Reviewer's Manual and reported using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Systematic Review was used to assess the quality of studies. RESULTS: The final review comprised 15 articles published between 2013 and 2021, most of which indicate that metaverse interventions support increased knowledge, self-confidence, engagement, satisfaction, and performance in nursing students. Several articles in this review presented mixed findings related to certain learning outcomes. CONCLUSION: This umbrella review supports the viability and effectiveness of metaverse in nursing education.

Development of mealtime difficulty scale for older adults with dementia in long-term care facilities.

BACKGROUND: In older patients with dementia, functional dependence on individuals affects their eating behavior, leading to difficulties with meals. In addition to individual factors, several social, cultural, and environmental factors influence mealtime difficulties in older individuals with dementia. Therefore, a measure is required to evaluate the difficulty of eating, considering the different interacting phenomena. METHODS: Mealtime Difficulties Scale for older adults with Dementia (MDSD) was developed through a literature review. A pilot test was undertaken to confirm the meaning of the items and the relevance of mealtime difficulties for older patients with dementia. A panel of six experts examined the content validity of the MDSD. Convenience sampling was used to recruit direct care workers from long-term care facilities, of which 150 were recruited for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and 208 for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). RESULTS: The final version of the MDSD included 19 items, with a Cronbach's α of 0.91. The EFA identified three factors ("functional," "caregiving," and "behavioral") that account for 54.6% of the total variance. The CFA confirmed the validity of the instrument. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence to substantiate the validity and reliability of MDSD was found. While this tool has limitations in that it does not ensure convergent validity, it can be considered significant as it can assess the mealtime difficulty among older patients with dementia from different perspectives.

Teaching Presence, Self-Regulated Learning and Learning Satisfaction on Distance Learning for Students in a Nursing Education Program.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has dramatically affected how nursing students are educated. Distance learning has become the norm, and an evaluation of learning achievement is needed. This is a mixed-method study of teaching presence, self-regulated learning, and learning satisfaction in distance learning to evaluate the learning achievement of students in a nursing education program. Ninety-four students for quantitative and seven students for qualitative research were sampled. All the sampled students attend the nursing education program in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and were enrolled during the first semester of 2020. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 21.0, and qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis in NVivo 12. Teaching presence and self-regulated learning were identified as the factors affecting learning satisfaction. In a focus group interview, teaching presence increased when the students received feedback and saw the faces of their professors. Self-regulated learning occurred when they had opportunities to practice self-study and leadership and when they formed relationships between professors and colleagues. These methods have also been recognized to increase learning satisfaction. Considering the results of this study, it is necessary to develop teaching methods that enhance the learning satisfaction of students in distance learning nursing education programs.

Meal-Monitoring Systems Using Weight and Temperature Sensors for Elder Residents in Long-Term Care Facilities.

This paper presents a few meal-monitoring systems for elder residents (especially patients) in LTCFs by using electronic weight and temperature sensors. These monitoring systems enable to convey the information of the amount of meal taken by the patients in real-time via wireless communication networks onto the mobile phones of their nurses in charge or families. Thereby, the nurses can easily spot the most patients who need immediate assistance, while the families can have relief in seeing the crucial information for the well-being of their parents at least three times a day. Meanwhile, the patients tend to suffer burns of their tongues because they can hardly recognize the temperature of hot meals served. This situation can be avoided by utilizing the meal temperature-monitoring system, which displays an alarm to the patients when the meal temperature is above the reference. These meal-monitoring systems can be easily implemented by utilizing low-cost sensor chips and Arduino NANO boards so that elder-care hospitals and nursing homes can afford to exploit them with no additional cost. Hence, we believe that the proposed monitoring systems would be a potential solution to provide a great help and relief for the professional nurses working in elder-care hospitals and nursing homes.

An Online International Collaborative Learning Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic for Nursing Students: Mixed Methods Study.

BACKGROUND: Given the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a better understanding of how nursing programs around the globe have implemented distance education methods and related initiatives to provide international collaborative learning opportunities as well as complementary aspects of practical education would be constructive for nursing students. It is expected that international collaboratives through web-based communication will continue to be increasingly utilized after the pandemic; therefore, it is time to discuss the effects and direction of these developments. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to examine the impact of an online international collaborative learning program on prelicensure nursing students' international and global competencies in South Korea. METHODS: We conducted a mixed methods study (web-based surveys and focus group interviews). A total of 15 students participated in the study. The surveys were used to examine changes in participants' global leadership competencies, and the focus group interviews were used to evaluate the program's effectiveness and to identify opportunities for improvement. The online international collaborative program consisted of 7 synchronous web-based classroom sessions. Each session ran for 60 to 90 minutes. Faculty experts and nurses working in the United States discussed various topics with students, such as nursing education in the United States and evidence-based teaching and learning. The students gave presentations on the South Korean nursing education system. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test, and content analysis methods. RESULTS: Participants reported improvement in their global leadership competencies. Four main categories emerged from analysis of the focus interviews: (1) realistic applicability, (2) clarification, (3) expansion of perspectives, and (4) initiative. CONCLUSIONS: The online international collaborative learning program had a positive impact on the development of students' international competencies. The findings support the further development of international exchange programs through web-based meetings in the postpandemic era.