Status of knowledge on student-learning environments in nursing homes: A mixed-method systematic review.

AIM AND OBJECTIVE: To give an overview of empirical studies investigating nursing homes as a learning environment during nursing students' clinical practice. BACKGROUND: A supportive clinical learning environment is crucial to students' learning and for their development into reflective and capable practitioners. Nursing students' experience with clinical practice can be decisive in future workplace choices. A competent workforce is needed for the future care of older people. Opportunities for maximum learning among nursing students during clinical practice studies in nursing homes should therefore be explored. DESIGN: Mixed-method systematic review using PRISMA guidelines, on learning environments in nursing homes, published in English between 2005-2015. METHODS: Search of CINAHL with Full Text, Academic Search Premier, MEDLINE and SocINDEX with Full Text, in combination with journal hand searches. Three hundred and thirty-six titles were identified. Twenty studies met the review inclusion criteria. Assessment of methodological quality was based on the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Data were extracted and synthesised using a data analysis method for integrative reviews. RESULTS: Twenty articles were included. The majority of the studies showed moderately high methodological quality. Four main themes emerged from data synthesis: "Student characteristic and earlier experience"; "Nursing home ward environment"; "Quality of mentoring relationship and learning methods"; and "Students' achieved nursing competencies." CONCLUSION: Nursing home learning environments may be optimised by a well-prepared academic-clinical partnership, supervision by encouraging mentors and high-quality nursing care of older people. Positive learning experiences may increase students' professional development through achievement of basic nursing skills and competencies and motivate them to choose the nursing home as their future workplace. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: An optimal learning environment can be ensured by thorough preplacement preparations in academia and in nursing home wards, continuous supervision and facilitation of team learning.

Implementing simulation in a nursing education programme: a case report from Tanzania.

This paper presents a description of, and some reflections around, the experience of implementing simulation-based education within a nursing education programme in a low-income context. The students in the nursing education programme found the simulation sessions to be useful, motivating and a realistic learning method. Our experience may provide useful insight for other nursing education programmes in low-income contexts. It looks like a deeper knowledge about the feasibility of simulation-based education from both the teacher and student perspective is necessary.

Boundaries of confidentiality in nursing care for mother and child in HIV programmes.

BACKGROUND: Confidentiality lies at the core of medical ethics and is the cornerstone for developing and keeping a trusting relationship between nurses and patients. In the wake of the HIV epidemic, there has been a heightened focus on confidentiality in healthcare contexts. Nurses' follow-up of HIV-positive women and their susceptible HIV-exposed children has proved to be challenging in this regard, but the ethical dilemmas concerning confidentiality that emerge in the process of ensuring HIV-free survival of the third party - the child - have attracted limited attention. OBJECTIVE: The study explores challenges of confidentiality linked to a third party in nurse-patient relationships in a rural Tanzanian HIV/AIDS context. STUDY CONTEXT: The study was carried out in rural and semi-urban settings of Tanzania where the population is largely agro-pastoral, the formal educational level is low and poverty is rife. The HIV prevalence of 1.5% is low compared to the national prevalence of 5.1%. METHODS: Data were collected during 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork and consisted of participant observation in clinical settings and during home visits combined with in-depth interviews. The main categories of informants were nurses employed in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programmes and HIV-positive women enrolled in these programmes. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Based on information about the study aims, all informants consented to participate. Ethical approval was granted by ethics review boards in Tanzania and Norway. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: The material indicates a delicate balance between the nurses' attempt to secure the HIV-free survival of the babies and the mothers' desire to preserve confidentiality. Profound confidentiality-related dilemmas emerged in actual practice, and indications of a lack of thorough consideration of the implication of a patient's restricted disclosure came to light during follow-up of the HIV-positive women and the third party - the child who is at risk of HIV infection through mother's milk. World Health Organization's substantial focus on infant survival (Millennium Development Goal-4) and the strong calls for disclosure among the HIV-positive are reflected on in the discussion.

Reflections on informed choice in resource-poor settings: the case of infant feeding counselling in PMTCT programmes in Tanzania.

A growing emphasis on patient involvement in health care has brought 'informed choice' to the core of the debate on provider-patient interaction in global health-care programmes. How the principles of patient involvement and informed choice are implemented and experienced in diverging health systems and cultural contexts are issues of increasing interest. Infant feeding and infant feeding counselling of HIV-positive women have posed particular challenges related to choice. Based on ethnographic research conducted from 5 November 2008 to 5 August 2009 within prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programmes in two hospitals in rural and semi-urban Tanzania, this study explores nurse counsellors' and HIV-positive women's experiences of infant feeding counselling and patient choice. One of the hospitals (hospital A) promoted exclusive breastfeeding as the only infant feeding option, while the other hospital (hospital B) aimed to follow the Tanzanian PMTCT infant feeding guidelines of 2007 promoting patient choice in infant feeding methods. Women in hospital A expressed trust in the advice given and confidence in their own ability to practice exclusive breastfeeding, while women in hospital B expressed great uncertainty and confusion about how best to feed their infants. This paper reflects on the feasibility of a counselling procedure that promotes choice of infant feeding methods in PMTCT programmes in severely resource-poor settings where HIV-positive women have limited access to resources and to up-to-date knowledge on HIV and infant feeding outside the counselling room. We suggest that a universalistic procedure presenting the same unambiguous message on infant feeding to all women enrolled in the PMTCT programme in this and similar settings is likely to produce more confidence, less confusion and, hence, better results in terms of HIV-free survival of the baby.

Challenges of disseminating clinical practice guidelines in a weak health system: the case of HIV and infant feeding recommendations in Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Clinical guidelines aim to improve patient outcomes by providing recommendations on appropriate healthcare for specific clinical conditions. Scientific evidence produced over time leads to change in clinical guidelines, and a serious challenge may emerge in the process of communicating the changes to healthcare practitioners and getting new practices adopted. There is very little information on the major barriers to implementing clinical guidelines in low-income settings. Looking at how continual updates to clinical guidelines within a particular health intervention are communicated may shed light on the processes at work. The aim of this paper is to explore how the content of a series of diverging infant feeding guidelines have been communicated to managers in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV Programme (PMTCT) with the aim of generating knowledge about both barriers and facilitating factors in the dissemination of new and updated knowledge in clinical guidelines in the context of weak healthcare systems. METHODS: A total of 22 in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted in 2011. All informants were linked to the PMTCT programme in Tanzania. The informants included managers at regional and district levels and health workers at health facility level. RESULTS: The informants demonstrated partial and incomplete knowledge about the recommendations. There was lack of scientific reasoning behind various infant feeding recommendations. The greatest challenges to the successful communication of the infant feeding guidelines were related to slowness of communication, inaccessible jargon-ridden English language in the manuals, lack of summaries, lack of supportive supervision to make the guidelines comprehensible, and the absence of a reading culture. CONCLUSION: The study encountered substantial gaps in knowledge about the diverse HIV and infant feeding policies. These gaps were partly related to the challenges of communicating the clinical guidelines. There is a need for caution in assuming that important changes in guidelines for clinical practice can easily be translated to and implemented in local programme settings, not least in the context of weak healthcare systems.

Rethinking nursing care: an ethnographic approach to nurse-patient interaction in the context of a HIV prevention programme in rural Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: While care has been described as the essence of nursing, it is generally agreed that care is a complex phenomenon that remains elusive. Literature reviews highlight the centrality of nurse-patient interactions in shaping care. In sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a critical shortage of health workers, nurses remain the core of the health workforce, but the quality of the patient care they provide has been questioned. OBJECTIVE: The study explored how care is shaped, expressed and experienced in nurses' everyday communication among HIV positive women in Tanzania. STUDY CONTEXT: Data were collected through a prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme with a comprehensive community component conducted by a church-run hospital in rural Tanzania. The population is largely agro-pastoral, the formal educational level is low and poverty is rampant. METHODS: An ethnographic approach was employed. Nurses and women enrolled in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme were followed closely over a period of nine months in order to explore their encounters and interactions. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: The way care is shaped, expressed and experienced is not globally uniform, and the expectations of what quality care involves differ between settings. In this study the expectations of nurses' instructions and authority, combined with nurses' personal engagement were experienced as caring interactions. The findings from this study demonstrate that the quality of nursing care needs to be explored within the specific historical, socio-cultural context in which it is practised.