A novel Interactive Health Communication Application (IHCA) for parents of children with long-term conditions: Development, implementation and feasibility assessment.

BACKGROUND: Few evidence-based, on-line resources exist to support home-based care of childhood long-term conditions. METHODS: In a feasibility study, children with stages 3, 4, or 5 chronic kidney disease, parents and professionals collaboratively developed a novel Online Parent Information and Support (OPIS) application. Parents were randomized to an intervention arm with access to OPIS or a control arm without access. OPIS usage was assessed using Google Analytics. Parents in the intervention arm completed the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM) and User Interface Satisfaction (USE) questionnaires and participated in qualitative interviews. RESULTS: Twenty parents accessed OPIS with a mean of 23.3 (SD 20.8, range 2-64) visits per user. Responses from the SAM and USE questionnaires were positive, most respondents rating OPIS highly and finding it easy to use. Qualitative suggestions include refinement of OPIS components, enabling personalization of OPIS functionalities and proactive endorsements of OPIS by professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of OPIS into standard practice is feasible in the centre where it was developed. Suggested developments will augment reported strengths to inform ongoing testing in the wider UK network of units. Our design and methods are transferrable to developing and evaluating web-applications to support home-based clinical care-giving for other long-term conditions.

Problems with competence assessment as it applies to student nurses.

Nursing has enthusiastically embraced the concept of continuing competence as the key means of reassuring the public of the overall quality of the profession. There are many definitions of competence and a number of nursing regulatory bodies have put into operation, a definition which is reductionist rather then holistic in nature. Not surprisingly, and as a consequence many nurses, including nurse educators, think competence comprises a number of key competencies which can be isolated, accumulated and tallied. It is clear that both philosophically and practically these notions of competence have influenced the way that student nurses are currently educated. More specifically it is in preparation for their initial entry to practice that the approach to competence assessment of student nurses becomes problematic. In this paper it will be argued that the principles of continuing competence assessment, associated with the on going competence of experienced registered nurses, do not readily translate to students who are still in the process of learning. We suggest that solutions to this problem are three-fold and can be found by replicating for the student the conditions that apply to the assessment of continuing competence for registered nurses.