The systems psychodynamic role identity of nursing students during their preceptorship.

BACKGROUND: Existing research on nursing students' preceptorship experiences focusses mainly on conscious and rational behaviour, evidencing experiences of personal and professional development. This study argues that the exploration of their unconscious experiences could add important information towards an in-depth understanding of their role identity during this experience. OBJECTIVE: The research objective was to describe the unconscious role identity of nursing students during their preceptorship from a systems psychodynamic stance. DESIGN: A qualitative design, a collective case study and hermeneutic phenomenology were utilised as methodologies. SETTING: Set in the School of Nursing of a Canadian University, the research focussed on students in the fourth year Consolidation in Nursing Practice Course. PARTICIPANTS: The sample included 41 nursing students, 37 females, 22-28 years of age. FINDINGS: The manifesting themes were high levels of anxiety, defensive structures, boundary and authority matters, and role dynamics. The nursing students experienced high levels and different kinds of anxiety, which they defended against using introjections, projections and regression to their child ego state. They experienced the preceptorship as being in a middle position between past and future as well as between knowing and not knowing. The discussion was presented in relation to the macro (organisational), meso (group), and micro (individual) levels. CONCLUSIONS: Unconsciously, the nursing students experienced difficulty in effectively taking up their professional role. They defended against their discomfort by splitting their experiences into what they introjected and projected. They introjected incompetence in coping with the emotional demands of the role and projected their anger onto authority figures. Their professional role identity got stuck in a de-authorised position where they could survive but not develop their selves in their new role. These experiences inhibited their authenticity and learning ability.

The role of spirituality in coping with the demands of the hospital culture amongst fourth-year nursing students.

The aim of this research was to describe the role of spirituality in coping with the demands of the hospital culture amongst fourth-year nursing students. Qualitative, descriptive, hermeneutic interpretive research was done. A case study of 14 female Canadian nursing students was asked to write an essay on their experiences of the demands of the hospital culture. Content analysis was used and positive psychology served as the interpretive lens. Trustworthiness and ethicality were ensured. The findings indicated that although the nursing students expressed themselves in religious and spiritual words, they did not significantly illustrate the theoretically associated intra-, interpersonal and sacred behaviours to be referred to as being spiritual in their experience as a care giver in the hospital culture. They also did not illustrate behaviours linked to other positive psychology constructs such as sense of coherence, resilience, engagement or emotional intelligence. Rather, the nursing students experienced identity crises. Recommendations for the inclusion of mentoring in the curriculum of nursing students were formulated.

Individual diversity management and salutogenic functioning.

Individual diversity management was framed as how individual managers engage with and experience diversity situations. Salutogenesis was chosen as the psychological model to understand individual' management of diversity. The aim of the research was to investigate whether and how sense of coherence (SOC) acts as differentiator between ineffective and effective diversity management amongst managers. Based on their quantitatively measured SOC scores, 33 managers in a financial services organization were divided into a (statistically significantly different) low and high functioning subgroup. This was followed by a qualitative interview based on their experienced comprehension, manageability and meaningfulness of diversity experiences. Compared to the low subgroup, the high SOC subgroup reported understanding of the necessity of diversity discussions, managing themselves as representatives of a specific race, gender and age group, and finding diversity experiences meaningful towards identity forming and effective interpersonal relationships. Their SOC was linked to other salutogenic constructs. It was recommended that this organization design its diversity programme based on salutogenesis as theoretical model.