Cognition and dementia with Raymond and Brain: Curriculum development and evaluation using interactive animated flipped-classroom modules to impact nursing students' attitude toward dementia care.

AIM: To design a modular, flipped-classroom curriculum using character animations to improve knowledge and attitudes regarding dementia care among pre-clinical nursing students. BACKGROUND: Demographic trends suggest an urgent, unmet need for nurses with interest and adequate training in caring for people with dementia and other disorders of cognition. While flipped classrooms using video show promise, little is known about specific animation techniques to impact knowledge and attitudes in preclinical nursing education. DESIGN: A curriculum was developed, implemented and assessed across three nursing schools in series, totaling 223 eligible students in the states of Connecticut and Hawaii, USA from 2019 to 2022. The evaluation included prospective pre-post assessment of knowledge, attitudes and module acceptability, as well as qualitative interpretations of needs assessment data. METHODS: The six-step curriculum development process was based on that described by Kern et al., including: 1) general needs assessment in the form of literature review; 2) targeted needs assessment, in the form of faculty stakeholder meetings, a student focus group and baseline surveys; 3) optimization of learning objectives based on needs; 4) development of a pedagogical approach, namely animated, interactive modules informed by previously described best practices in animation development; 5) implementation across three different nursing schools; and 6) assessment of the learners and evaluation of the curriculum, primarily via surveys and engagement metadata. RESULTS: Needs assessments confirmed the importance of prior experiences, sense of mission and other affective elements as key factors mitigating learners' baseline receptiveness to training and careers in cognition-related care. Students at all three institutions rated the modules' impact on their dementia-related attitudes highly, however these ratings were statistically significantly lower when both modules were delivered as a single assignment at one site. Knowledge quiz scores significantly increased from baseline at all three sites. Only 2.6% of respondents would have preferred a text-based reading assignment. Acceptability scores, including clarity, relevance, entertainment, attention and complexity, were generally rated highly, but attention and entertainment were rated significantly lower when both modules were administered as a single assignment. CONCLUSION: Cognition and Dementia with Raymond and Brain demonstrates the successful blending of animation industry workflows with best practices of curriculum development to create a novel, animated module series that is acceptable and effective in priming nursing students with the attitudes and knowledge to continue learning about cognition and its disorders.

Developing an animated COVID-19 e-curriculum for adults with dementia and caregivers: Challenges and solutions.

OBJECTIVES: Effective education and support for adults with dementia and their caregivers around pandemic issues is critical for protecting them. Animation-based learning has shown promise in patient education. We collaborated with educators and support staff at Alzheimer's Association Connecticut (AACT) to conduct a mixed-methods study and develop an animated e-curriculum addressing pandemic related challenges. METHODS: We conducted focus groups and surveys with dementia and caregiver educators and support staff at AACT for the initial needs assessment and the later e-curriculum evaluation. An interdisciplinary team of educators followed a step-wise process to transform the needs assessment results into an animation based e-curriculum. RESULTS: Participants identified the following pandemic challenges: 1) social isolation, 2) caregiver fatigue, 3) safety, and 4) difficulty navigating the healthcare system. The overall quality and usefulness of the e-curriculum was "very good" or "excellent". CONCLUSIONS: An animated e-curriculum addressing pandemic related issues relevant to adults with dementia and caregivers had positive reviews and was associated with improvement in self-reported ability to perform curriculum objectives among community dementia educators. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The pandemic challenges identified may facilitate the development of further resources. Additionally, this project may serve as a guide for clinicians interested in incorporating animation into education efforts.

Assessing surge capacity expansion plan awareness and attitudes: A survey of Connecticut hospitals.

This study aimed to ascertain levels of awareness and attitudes of healthcare professionals within four hospital personnel categories, regarding their facility's surge capacity expansion plan. The exploratory descriptive study used a 14-question electronic survey to collect data from hospital personnel in four labour categories. A total of 292 hospital staff from 32 Connecticut hospitals completed the survey, including executive staff mid-level management staff incident command hospital staff and emergency planning contacts. The strongest levels of agreement were found to be: the need for an emergency planning contact, understanding surge expansion roles and responsibilities, and provision of enhanced training and heightened participation in drills and exercises. Statistical significance was found when comparing hospital personnel categories in seven of the 14 survey questions that related to time at hospital, understanding personal role in surge event, understanding staff role in surge event, participating in events to increase surge awareness, understanding alternative care facility roles and responsibilities, understanding incident command system (ICS) roles and responsibilities and the needfor ICS training. Findings demonstrate that some personnel perceive that their institutions are sub-optimally prepared to expand surge capacity. Education and training are important factors that contribute to improving these perceptions and help guide institutional preparedness and response efforts.

Impact of an educational intervention on residents' knowledge of pediatric disaster medicine.

BACKGROUND: Globally, natural and created events have underscored the vulnerability of children in disasters. There is an unmet need for a standardized pediatric disaster medicine (PDM) curriculum. OBJECTIVE: To create and implement a PDM course, measure course efficacy, and assess residents' attitudes toward and experience in disaster medicine. DESIGN/METHODS: An educational intervention was conducted for pediatric and emergency medicine residents at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Participants completed a precourse survey of PDM attitudes and experience. Paired t tests were used to compare pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest scores. Test performance was assessed by resident type and postgraduate year. A postcourse survey gauged reaction to the course and interest in further PDM training. RESULTS: Among the participants, 11 residents (9.4%) have treated disaster victims, and 5 (4.3%) had formal disaster medicine education. Most (83%) felt PDM is an important part of their training. Seventy-five eligible residents (64.6%) completed the intervention. Pairwise comparison of scores showed a mean improvement in scores of 24.5% immediately after taking the course (95% confidence interval, 22.9%-30.1%; P < 0.001). Two months later, residents scored a mean of 69.0% for the delayed posttest, with a retained improvement in scores (18.3%; 95% confidence interval, 14.3%-22.3%; P < 0.001). Residents preferred future PDM exercises to additional didactic training (72.0% vs. 32.7%; P < 0.001%). CONCLUSIONS: Residents who complete this curriculum increase their knowledge of PDM with moderate retention of information. Most residents lack PDM training, believe it is important, and request disaster-training exercises.