An educator's toolkit for virtual simulation: A usability study.

BACKGROUND: The rapid change brought on by COVID-19 meant that many educators adopted virtual simulation quickly, often without having a strong background in the pedagogical principles of virtual simulation. To address this resource gap, a team of 21 Ontario virtual simulation-experienced educators created the freely available, online, interprofessional Virtual Simulation Educator's Toolkit. The Toolkit provides the theory, practical strategies and resources needed to teach effectively with virtual simulation. Because the Toolkit would include new content, resources and numerous untested design elements, the team conducted a usability test. DESIGN: A usability study, that followed a three-step process, was conducted. Participants were asked to carefully review the Toolkit, including all interactive components and complete an online survey based on the Technology Acceptance Model, to measure the ease of use and utility of the Toolkit. Lastly, participants were interviewed. PARTICIPANTS: In keeping with sampling principles for usability studies, twenty experienced virtual simulation educators from different disciplines participated in the study. METHODS: A validated survey and one-on-one interviews were used to measure educators' perceptions of the ease of use and utility of the Toolkit and their recommendations to improve it. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were coded and themes developed. CONCLUSION: The score of 90 % on the Toolkit Experience Survey indicated that participants found the Toolkit both easy to use and useful. Results from the interviews indicated that a practical, accessible professional development tool is urgently needed to support education with virtual simulation. Because the Toolkit introduces educators to different ways of implementing virtual simulation, as well as options, process considerations, and tools to enhance their teaching with virtual simulation, different disciplines and educators with different levels of simulation experience may benefit by using it.

Recognizing pain as an early warning symptom of ischemic cardiovascular disease: A qualitative artistic representation of the journey.

Background: Understanding the experience of prodromal ischemic cardiac pain and associated symptoms through use of literary and visual art evokes heightened a wareness of the emotional journey. AIMS: The aim of this study was to describe the initial early prodromal pain-related symptoms and feelings associated with adjusting to this new cardiac health concern and explore the subjective experience of coming to the realization and awareness of developing heart disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study is a secondary supplemental qualitative analysis, using an arts-based embodied layered exploration assisted to translate the experiences of 23 individuals' journeys through symptom recognition. The analytic process involved three iterative layers: qualitative descriptive analysis of participant pain narratives, interpretation with thematic poetry, and representation via visual art to evoke an aesthetic, heightened level of understanding of the data. RESULTS: Denial and disbelief, encroaching pain and symptoms of heart disease, and self-recrimination were three themes that emerged from the data. Pain described by participants brought forward the emotional dimensions of the experience. Participants described their process of realization as a tumultuous time, fraught with feelings of vulnerability and uncertainty, where anger and self-effacing ridicule permeated their thoughts that were tempered with profound gratitude at survival. CONCLUSION: Bridging the connection between science and art to disseminate awareness of the nature of living with cardiac-related prodromal pain and disease is novel. Providing invitation and entrance into an individual's pain experience through qualitative inquiry with use of arts-based approaches makes visible the emotional meaning of pain.

Contexte: La compréhension de l'expérience de la douleur cardiaque ischémique avant-coureuse et des symptômes qui lui sont associés par l'utilisation de la littérature et des arts visuels permet de mieux prendre conscience du cheminement émotionnel.Objectifs: Cette étude avait pour but de décrire les premiers symptômes avant-coureurs liés à la douleur et les sentiments suscités par l'adaptation à ce nouveau problème de santé cardiaque, ainsi que d'étudier l'expérience subjective de la prise de conscience d'être en train de déveloper une maladie cardiaque.Matériel et méthodes: Cette étude constitue une analyse qualitative supplémentaire secondaire utilisant une méthode d'exploration par les arts à plusieurs niveaux pour traduire le cheminement de 23 personnes en ce qui concerne la reconnaissance des symptômes. Le processus d'analyse comportait trois niveaux itératifs : une analyse descriptive qualitative des récits sur la douleur des participants, l'interprétation par la poésie thématique et la représentation par l'art visuel, afin de susciter un niveau de compréhension esthétique et plus élevé des données.Résultats: Le déni, l'incrédulité, la douleur envahissante et les symptômes de maladie cardiaque, de même que l'autorécrimination, sont trois des thèmes qui sont ressortis des données. La description que les participants ont faite de la douleur a révélé les dimensions émotionnelles de l'expérience. Les participants ont décrit leur processus de prise de conscience comme une période tumultueuse, marquée par la vulnérabilité et l'incertitude, où la colère et une dérision discrète imprégnaient leurs pensées, lesquelles étaient tempérées par une profonde gratitude pour avoir survécu.Conclusion: L'établissement d'un lien entre la science et l'art pour faire connaître la vie avec la douleur avant-coureuse et la maladie cardiaque consistue une approche novatrice. Le fait d'être invité à pénétrer à l'intérieur de l'expérience de la douleur vécue par un individu par le truchement d'une enquête qualitative ayant recours à des approches axées sur les arts rend visible la signification émotionnelle de la douleur.

A Power Experience: A Phenomenological Study of Interprofessional Education.

The purpose of this supplementary analysis of a hermeneutic phenomenological study of the experience of interprofessional collaboration for nursing and medical students was to explore the experience of power that was threaded throughout the original study. Seventeen students participated in guided, face-to-face conversations in the original study (Prentice, Engel, Taplay, & Stobbe, 2014). Through the processes of deductive analysis and inductive reasoning, 2 themes of power emerged from these research conversations: (a) complicated knowledge is power and (b) the power and silence of intimidation. These themes suggest that power and power differentials are significant factors in student interactions in interprofessional learning and have the potential to adversely affect these interactions. Students' perceptions of power need to be taken into account and addressed when planning and implementing interprofessional education events.

Staff perceptions of collaboration on a new interprofessional unit using the Assessment of Interprofessional Team Collaboration Scale (AITCS).

The aim of this study was to obtain baseline information on staff attitudes and perceptions of interprofessional collaboration on a newly formed interprofessional education unit. The Assessment of Interprofessional Team Collaboration Scale (AITCS) was administered to 54 interprofessional team members on a 30-bed medical interprofessional education (IPE) unit. We found that the team members respected each other but felt they needed more organisational support to further develop team skills. Additionally, team members noted that they did not have enough time for team reflection or to make changes to the team processes. The results obtained from this study will help to develop and refine educational strategies to assist the staff working on the IPE unit.

The process of adopting and incorporating simulation into undergraduate nursing curricula: a grounded theory study.

The aim of this study is to explain the process of adopting and incorporating simulation as a teaching strategy in undergraduate nursing programs, define uptake, and discuss potential outcomes. In many countries, simulation is increasingly adopted as a common teaching strategy. However, there is a dearth of knowledge related to the process of adoption and incorporation. We used an interpretive, constructivist approach to grounded theory to guide this research study. We conducted the study was in Ontario, Canada, during 2011-2012. Using multiple data sources, we informed the development of this theory including in-depth interviews (n = 43) and a review of key organizational documents, such as mission and vision statements (n = 67) from multiple nursing programs (n = 13). The adoption and uptake of mid- to high-fidelity simulation equipment is a multistep iterative process involving various organizational levels within the institution that entails a seven-phase process: (a) securing resources, (b) nursing leaders working in tandem, (c) getting it out of the box, (d) learning about simulation and its potential for teaching, (e) finding a fit, (f) trialing the equipment, and (g) integrating into the curriculum. These findings could assist nursing programs in Canada and internationally that wish to adopt or further incorporate simulation into their curricula and highlight potential organizational and program level outcomes.

Interprofessional Collaboration: The Experience of Nursing and Medical Students' Interprofessional Education.

In this hermeneutic phenomenological study, we examined the experience of interprofessional collaboration from the perspective of nursing and medical students. Seventeen medical and nursing students from two different universities participated in the study. We used guiding questions in face-to-face, conversational interviews to explore students' experience and expectations of interprofessional collaboration within learning situations. Three themes emerged from the data: the great divide, learning means content, and breaking the ice. The findings suggest that the experience of interprofessional collaboration within learning events is influenced by the natural clustering of shared interests among students. Furthermore, the carry-forward of impressions about physician-nurse relationships prior to the educational programs and during clinical placements dominate the formation of new relationships and acquisition of new knowledge about roles, which might have implications for future practice.

"Negotiating, navigating, and networking": three strategies used by nursing leaders to shape the adoption and incorporation of simulation into nursing curricula-a grounded theory study.

Background. Implementing simulation requires a substantial commitment of human and financial resources. Despite this, little is known about the strategies used by academic nursing leaders to facilitate the implementation of a simulation program in nursing curricula. Methods. A constructivist grounded theory study was conducted within 13 nursing programs in Ontario, Canada. Perspectives of key stakeholders (n = 27) including nursing administrators (n = 6), simulation leaders (n = 9), and nursing faculty (n = 12) were analyzed using the constant comparison method. Results. Nursing leaders, specifically nursing administrators and simulation leaders who successfully led the adoption and incorporation of simulation into nursing curricula, worked together and utilized negotiating, navigating, and networking strategies that impacted the adoption and incorporation of simulation into nursing curricula. Conclusions. Strategies that were found to be useful when planning and executing the adoption and incorporation of an innovation, specifically simulation, into nursing curricula provide practical approaches that may be helpful to nurse leaders when embarking upon an organizational change.

Organizational culture shapes the adoption and incorporation of simulation into nursing curricula: a grounded theory study.

Purpose. To create a substantive mid-range theory explaining how the organizational cultures of undergraduate nursing programs shape the adoption and incorporation of mid-to high-level technical fidelity simulators as a teaching strategy within curricula. Method. A constructivist grounded theory was used to guide this study which was conducted in Ontario, Canada, during 2011-12. Semistructured interviews (n = 43) with participants that included nursing administrators, nursing faculty, and simulation leaders across multiple programs (n = 13) informed this study. Additionally, key documents (n = 67) were reviewed. Purposeful and theoretical sampling was used and data were collected and analyzed simultaneously. Data were compared among and between sites. Findings. The organizational elements that shape simulation in nursing (OESSN) model depicts five key organizational factors at the nursing program level that shaped the adoption and incorporation of simulation: (1) leaders working in tandem, (2) information exchange, (3) physical locale, (4) shared motivators, and (5) scaffolding to manage change. Conclusions. The OESSN model provides an explanation of the organizational factors that contributed to the adoption and incorporation of simulation into nursing curricula. Nursing programs that use the OESSN model may experience a more rapid or broad uptake of simulation when organizational factors that impact adoption and incorporation are considered and planned for.