Creating a Safe Space for Nursing Students' Spiritual Reflection.

In an effort to improve students' comfort level and confidence with spiritual care, nursing faculty initiated a classroom activity to encourage students to think about and reflect upon 10 questions. Students responded by answering whether they had ever thought about the question being asked, then writing a short narrative response. Topics included issues about life, death, afterlife, spiritual well-being, truth, and God. Although 88.8% of participants (n = 107) considered themselves to be religious or spiritual, results revealed many had never thought about the questions being asked. Based on these findings, nurse educators should consider including a similar classroom reflection exercise to better prepare students for providing spiritual care prior to beginning clinical rotations.

A Survey of School Nurses' Perceptions of Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Therapies.

Complementary, alternative, and integrative therapies (CAIs) involve the use of practices outside of mainstream, conventional medicine. Few studies have been conducted on nurses' perception and knowledge of CAI therapies. There is limited information on the protocols school nurses must follow in their practice on CAI use. The purpose of this study is to assess school nurses' perception and knowledge of CAI therapies. A cross-sectional, nonexperimental survey study design was used, and participants were sampled with a cross-sectional convenience method. Members of four state School Nurses Associations were invited to participate in the study. Of the 290 participants, 100% of certified school nurses and 63% of non-certified school nurses believed CAI therapies have a place in their current practice (χ2 = 1.83, df = 1, p < .05). The study found that school nurses believe CAI therapies have a role in the school setting; however, the participants were not comfortable with assessing and administering these therapies.