Exploring the impact of a compassion-oriented training program on personal care workers in a nursing home: A mixed-methods pilot study.

This pilot study aimed to explore the impact of a compassion-oriented training program on Personal Care Workers (PCWs) in a nursing home. A mixed-methods approach was used, including pre- and post-questionnaire surveys to measure changes in compassion, and in-depth interviews and daily diaries to explore PCWs' perceptions and experiences. A convenience sample of five female PCWs from a nursing home in Hong Kong participated in the study. The quantitative results showed that the PCWs experienced a decline in compassion after participating in the program. The qualitative data analysis identified three themes: (1) the multifaceted nature of compassion, (2) barriers and threats to compassion, and (3) transfer of skills at the workplace. Overall, These findings highlighted the complexity of implementing effective compassion training programs in nursing home, and emphasized the importance of recognizing the multifaceted nature of compassion and addressing barriers and threats to compassion in the workplace.

Learning to prescribe and instruct exercise in physiotherapy education through authentic continuous assessment and rubrics.

BACKGROUND: Authentic assessment and effective feedback are among various strategies that promote learning in the assessment process. These strategies are commonly used during clinical placements. However, they are rarely implemented in the didactic portion of physiotherapy education despite the benefits this type of assessment may bring to achieving students' learning and outcome. METHODS: This mixed method study investigated how an authentic continuous assessment coupled with rubrics facilitated physiotherapy students' learning process in a real-life complex skill of exercise prescription and instruction. The study also explored the relationship between different activities in the Learning Management System (LMS) and learning outcomes. Qualitative data was collected using a focus group and an analysis of discussion forum posts. Quantitative data included various information from a questionnaire, the LMS and assessment score. RESULTS: Thematic analyses from the focus group and discussion forum posts suggest that students used a cyclical self-regulated learning process as a result of authentic task design and rubrics for feedback facilitation. Interestingly, the discussion forum access was found to be moderately and significantly correlated with assessment score by Spearman's rank correlation (ρ = 0.59, p < 0.01), while the students did not find the discussion forum useful. CONCLUSIONS: Overall results suggest the promotion of self-regulated learning in this authentic continuous assessment. The roles and goals of each authentic task within the assessment should be made explicit in order to raise cognitive awareness of benefits.

Benefits and challenges with gamified multi-media physiotherapy case studies: a mixed method study.

BACKGROUND: The use of gamification in higher education context has become popular in recent years with one aim of enhancing learning motivation, yet, it is unknown how physiotherapy students perceive gamified education experience. Using gamification together with multi-media patient case studies, this study explored whether and how gamified education motivated physiotherapy students' learning. It also investigated how other factors such as class design and mechanics affected gamified experience. METHOD: Six case studies in the subject Neurological Physiotherapy were transformed from paper-based cases to multi-media cases built by iSpring suite 8.1. Simulated, real or animated clients were used. Gamification mechanics such as leaderboards, scoring and prioritisation were embedded in the case studies. These gamified case studies were used in classes with Year-3 students enrolled in this subject. After taking these classes, 10 students participated in two focus groups and 32 students responded to a survey to share their experiences and perceptions on this pedagogy. RESULTS: Results showed that students perceived gamified education as motivating since this satisfied their competence and social needs and enhanced their self-efficacy. In addition, authentic patient videos, class activities that allowed conflict resolution and reflection, and the use of leaderboards were enablers in this gamified experience. CONCLUSION: Future gamified education in physiotherapy can provide authentic experience through class designs and gamification mechanics to foster learning motivation. A suggested mapping of gamified lessons for physiotherapy education is provided based on the results of this study.

Cognitive-motor interference in walking after stroke: test-retest reliability and validity of dual-task walking assessments.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the reliability and validity of a series of dual-task mobility assessments among individuals post-stroke. DESIGN: Observational study with repeated measures. SETTING: University laboratory. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty community-dwelling individuals with chronic stroke. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN MEASURES: Each of the two mobility tasks (1-minute level-ground walking with and without obstacle-negotiation) was performed concurrently with each of the eight cognitive tasks (auditory Stroop test, serial subtraction, shopping list recall and category naming at two difficulty levels). Walking distance and obstacle hitting rate (OHR) indicated dual-task mobility performance. Number of correct responses (NCR) indicated cognitive performance. Reaction time was additionally measured for the auditory Stroop test. Construct validity was examined by correlations between the dual-task assessments. The dual-task assessments were repeated within 7-14 days for test-retest reliability. RESULTS: Excellent test-retest reliability in walking distance and OHR was found (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC(3,1) = 0.891-0.984, P < 0.05). Moderate to excellent reliability was found in NCR and reaction time (ICC(3,1) = 0.480-0.911, P < 0.01). Correlations between walking distance were excellent ( rs = 0.840-0.985, P < 0.01). Correlations of NCR and reaction time between low- and high-level cognitive tasks were mostly moderate to excellent ( rs = 0.515-0.793, P < 0.01). Generally no significant correlations were found in NCR between the dual-task assessments with different cognitive domains. CONCLUSION: The dual-task walking assessments are reliable and valid for evaluating cognitive-motor interference in community-dwelling individuals post-stroke. The lack of correlations between the tasks of different cognitive domains indicates the need of using different cognitive domains in dual-task walking assessment post-stroke.