Nursing students and sport: health promotion, team building and professional skills education.

BACKGROUND: Nursing profession requires a complex set of capacities, such as team building, reaching a common goal, understanding of different roles, good communication, and positive conflict resolution. Teaching this kind of competencies during the university course is challenging. Team sports require quite similar abilities to those of a nursing tam. Introducing team sport into academic course could contribute to teach and to train these key competencies to nursing students. AIM: To improve important personal skills for nursing profession through team sport. METHODS: Students were invited to participate in team sport activities. To promote autonomy and initiative students were asked to create two teams (soccer and volleyball), to organize groups, to assign roles, and to choose the uniform. The two teams participated to a city university sports championship. Nursing school supported students in all the activities. At the end of the sport season, an anonymous questionnaire was administered to students. RESULTS: 24/107 nursing students (22.4%) participated, 13/24 males (54%) and 11/24 females (46%), (mean age 22.42 years, SD 2.28). 15/24 students (62.5%) attended all the training sessions. Students satisfaction was generally very positive in terms of physical wellness (87.5%), team building (95.8%), sharing and working for common goals (100%), and positive conflict resolution (100%), both when witnessed and experienced. All students would repeat and recommend the experience. CONCLUSIONS: Results were generally positive, but further research is necessary to evaluate potential positive effects in terms of nursing activities. NURSING IMPLICATIONS: Nursing course is very challenging, and promoting team-sport activities among students could have positive impact on professional skills education.

Nursing Professional Identity: A Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: Becoming a good nurse is a mandatory goal for each nurse and a daily challenge. Nurses have the responsibility to maintain the highest level of professional integrity and quality not only to protect patients and their families but also to positively influence nursing students. In fact, students learn how to become good nurses if they really experience that from all nurses they meet during their training. It could be useful to take a "general picture" of nurses who work every day into our hospitals. AIM: To evaluate the level of nursing professional identity. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was designed. An anonymous structured questionnaire was administered to nurses in a hospital Rome. RESULTS: 334 nurses participated and they were mainly female (80%); mean age: 37.11ys (SD 8.49); 15.87% had health professionals in family, and nursing profession was the first choice for the 72.16%; 93.71% had family support. In nursing profession, empathy and both human and technical requirements were important for more than 94.91%. 84.73% would repeat the nursing choice, and 79.64% would recommend that. Only 64.97% was satisfied about their profession. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing profession is a controversial profession, with motived and passionate professionals but still unsatisfied. Professional identity is a delicate and complex topic, and an essential part that consistently influences the personal attitude to reach the best nursing practice. NURSING IMPLICATIONS: Professional identity is one of the first aspects to take into account to better understand in which way nurses could influence colleagues, patients and their families, and finally nursing students during their daily practice.