Fear of death and its relationship to resilience in nursing students: A longitudinal study.

AIM: Taking a corpus of nursing students enrolled in the 2017-2021 nursing degree, we aim to analyse how students' levels of resilience and fear of death evolve in the first three years of the degree and whether there are differences between students based on age and gender. In addition, we aim to describe the relationship between resilience and fear of death. BACKGROUND: Throughout their training, nursing students will encounter situations of grief and death that may generate reactions of rejection, anxiety and emotional imbalance. Recognising and controlling these emotions through specialised training in end-of-life care and fostering resilience is essential. DESIGN: Comparative, correlational and longitudinal study. METHODS: Our corpus comprised 100 nursing students who were followed through the first three years of their training. Data were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale and the Resilience Scale. RESULTS: The corpus reported medium-high levels of fear of death overall. Patterns were similar for all academic years: fear of other people's death was invariably the highest scoring subscale; and while individual dimensions of the Collet-Lester scale correlated directly and significantly with each other they were found to be inversely related to student age. High levels of resilience were recorded and were highest in the final year. CONCLUSIONS: In this sample of student nurses, fear of death and resilience do not appear to be related to each other. Nursing education must include training specifically targeted at increasing levels of resilience and decreasing fear of death to improve end-of-life care.

Canine-Assisted Therapy and Quality of Life in People With Alzheimer-Type Dementia: Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: With the aim of improving the quality of life of people with Alzheimer's disease, primarily as regards behavioral and psychological symptoms, we implemented canine-assisted therapy in a group of people with this disease. METHODS: We conducted a quasi-experimental study, with a simple pre-post case series design. Participants comprised 10 Alzheimer's day care center users presenting severe or very severe cognitive decline. The measurement instrument employed was the Quality of Life in Late-Stage Dementia (QUALID) scale. RESULTS: By the end of the therapy, 100% of participants showed an improvement in physical, behavioral, and psychological aspects. The total scores of the QUALID scale for the three different evaluation times (before the therapy and 6 and 12 months after starting) after the canine-assisted therapy intervention were smaller and less dispersed. The total score for the QUALID scale decreased significantly (p < 0.05) at 6 and 12 months after starting therapy. An analysis by item revealed that the scores of all of them fell during the course of the therapy. DISCUSSION: Our study provides evidence of the significant benefits of canine-assisted therapy for quality of life in people with Alzheimer's disease.

Burnout y engagement en estudiantes universitarios de enfermería / Burnout and engagement among university nursing students

Los universitarios se encuentran sometidos a cargas académicas prolongadas que ocuparan la mayor parte de su tiempo. La capacidad para hacer frente a estas situaciones de estrés durante su formación, dependerá ente otras cosas, de la disposición personal para afrontar las demandas académicas. Objetivo: Describir el nivel de burnout (agotamiento, cinismo y eficacia académica) y el compromiso académico a través de la variable engagement (absorción, dedicación y vigor), además de analizar las asociaciones, relaciones y predicciones entre estas variables en estudiantes de Enfermería. Material y método. Estudio descriptivo transversal en 1009 sujetos. Instrumentos de recogida de datos: Maslach Burnout Inventory y Utrech Work Engagement en versión estudiantes. Resultados: Las dimensiones del burnout y engagement correlacionan entre sí. A mayor eficacia académica menos agotamiento y cinismo y mayor puntuación en todas las dimensiones del engagement académico. El vigor y la dedicación predicen puntuaciones más altas en eficacia académica. Las mujeres se perciben con puntuaciones más bajas en cinismo y más altas en eficacia académica, absorción y dedicación. Conclusiones: Los alumnos muestran más burnout cuando manifiestan altas puntuaciones de agotamiento y cinismo y bajas en eficacia académica, además valores altos en las tres dimensiones del engagement indican alto compromiso con sus estudios. La relación entre estas variables pone de manifiesto la diferencia entre hombres y mujeres y la influencia positiva del engagement en la eficacia académica del estudiante. El fomento de engagement puede ser una oportunidad para superar las tareas académicas y para enfrentarse al mundo laboral con mayor probabilidad de éxito

University students are tasked with a protracted academic workload that occupies the greater part of their time. Their ability to cope with the stress this entails during their degree course will partly depend on their personal response to these academic demands. Objective: to describe nursing students’ level of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism and academic efficacy) and academic engagement through the variable engagement (absorption, dedication and vigour), and to analyse associations, relations and predictions between these variables. Materials and method: cross-sectional descriptive study with 1009 subjects. Data collection instruments: student versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Results: the dimensions of burnout and engagement correlated with each other. The higher the score for academic efficacy, the lower the scores for exhaustion and cynicism and the higher the score in all dimensions of academic engagement. Vigour and dedication predicted higher scores for academic efficacy. Females' self-perceptions indicated lower scores for cynicism and higher scores for academic efficacy, absorption and dedication. Conclusions: students evidenced more burnout when they obtained high scores for exhaustion and cynicism and low scores for academic efficacy. In addition, high scores for the three dimensions of engagement indicated high commitment to their studies. The relationship between these variables indicates a difference between males and females and a positive influence of engagement on students' academic efficacy. Promoting engagement could help students to deal with academic tasks and enter the labour market with a greater probability of success