Italian Validation of the Online Student Engagement Scale (OSE) in Higher Education.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, entire university courses were moved online. This represented a challenge for universities, who were required to move toward an entirely online learning environment without adequate time to manage the change from traditional courses to online courses. However, beyond the emergency of the pandemic, higher education does increasingly incorporate an online learning element, and such a provision does appear to reflect both the desires of modern-day students and university offerings. For this reason, assessing students' online engagement is fundamental, not least because it has been seen to be related both to students' satisfaction and their academic achievement. A validated measure of student online engagement does not exist in Italy. Therefore, this study aims to assess both the factor structure and the validity of the Online Student Engagement (OSE) Scale in the Italian context. A convenience sample of 299 undergraduate university students completed a series of online questionnaires. The Italian OSE scale presents good psychometric properties and represents a valuable instrument for both practitioners and researchers examining students' engagement in online learning.

Personality traits and stress perception as predictors of students' online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with increasing student numbers means online learning will remain a prevalent feature of the university experience, therefore it is vital that we understand how personality can influence student online engagement. The current study examined whether students' personality traits and stress perception predicted their online engagement with their studies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 301 first year psychology students completed the Big Five Inventory, Challenge and Hindrance Stress Scales, and the Online Student Engagement Scale, which measured students': engagement skills, emotional engagement, participation and performance. Results revealed that conscientiousness positively predicted all types of online engagement. Extraversion predicted participation and performance. Neuroticism predicted engagement skills, emotional engagement and performance, whilst agreeableness and openness to experience respectively predicted participation and emotional engagement. Additionally, stress perceived as a hindrance negatively predicted performance. These results reveal that students' personality traits and stress perception influence their online engagement and might enable educators to identify those who may require support in engaging with their studies.

Nursing spiritual assessment instruments in adult patients: a narrative literature review.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK: Spiritual care in nursing is a critical part of providing holistic care. Whilst patients might desire spiritual care and value the opportunities that nurses take to engage with them to meet their spiritual needs, research suggests that nurses do not consistently engage in spiritual care with their patients. To identify instruments available to nurses to assess spirituality in different patient groups and highlight the characteristics and psychometric properties of these instruments. METHOD: A narrative literature review of the relevant literature published after 2008 was carried out in CINAHL, PsycINFO, MEDLINE and Google scholar databases in October 2020. Narrative review synthesized key findings and grouped instruments into macro areas by content. RESULTS: After the screening, based on inclusion criteria, 31 articles were identified. 17 instruments were identified and divided into 4 macro areas: wellbeing (N = 4), attitude (N = 5) needs (N =6) and multiple domains (N = 2). CONCLUSIONS: This review enables an increased awareness of the variety of instruments available to aid spiritual care and therefore increase their use within nurse clinical practice. The widening of the patient group to be considered (i.e., non-oncological) may have a significant impact on the practice, causing professionals to reflect on the necessity to investigate spiritual needs even at an early stage of a disease process. Future studies should aim to test reliability and validity of existing instruments rather than develop further ones.

Spiritual care in nursing: an overview of the measures used to assess spiritual care provision and related factors amongst nurses.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK: Spiritual wellbeing has important implications for an individual's health and wellbeing. Whilst the provision of spiritual care and assessment of spiritual needs is a vital part of the nurse's role, literature suggests that nurses do not always engage in spiritual care with their patients or assess their spiritual needs. This review aims to ascertain wider reasons for this inconsistent spiritual care delivery by nurses to their patients. METHODS: A review of the literature was conducted to identify instruments available relating to nursing professionals spiritual care and assessment. RESULTS: 14 measures relating to spiritual care and assessment were identified covering the key domains of: 'Beliefs and values and attitudes around spiritual care,' 'Frequency of provision or extent to which they provide spiritual care or willingness,' 'Respondents' level of knowledge around spirituality and spiritual care,' 'Ability to respond to spiritual pain,' and 'Multiple Domains: beliefs and attitudes around spirituality and spiritual care,  amount of preparation, training and knowledge, spiritual care practices, perceived ability and comfort with provision and perceived barriers to provision.' CONCLUSIONS: A lack of standardisation in the conceptualisation and assessment of spiritual care causes challenges in reviewing, however several themes do emerge.  In general student and qualified nurses are aware of the importance of providing spiritual care and are hindered by a lack of education about how best to implement such care.  The religiosity of individual nurses or their training institutions seems to be of less importance than training in spiritual care interventions.

Factors associated with and impact of burnout in nursing and residential home care workers for the elderly.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK: Numbers of elderly people worldwide continue to grow. Increasingly these individuals require nursing and residential care to meet their needs. Nursing is an occupation associated with burnout amongst its workforce, associated with increases of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and decreases in personal accomplishment. This review of literature provides a more detailed picture of the associations and predictors of burnout within this setting, and also considers the implications this holds for patient care, before providing recommendations for managers of such settings. METHODS: Literature searches were conducted across a range of academic databases with a series of relevant keywords. RESULTS: Examination of search results suggested several factors relating to staff burnout including occupational aspects, types of setting, staff perceptions, coping strategies, education and training and the impact of burnout on care delivery. CONCLUSIONS: Studies from across the globe suggest that burnout is prevalent amongst staff working in nursing and residential homes caring for elderly people, with implications for the patients, staff and homecare providers. Factors associated with burnout appear to include perceptions of job stress and occupational aspects, as well as the types of coping mechanisms staff employ. Managing grief associated with death of patients at work, as well as staff perceptions of both clients and their illnesses also appear related to burnout as well as the specific type of healthcare setting.