Learnings from nursing bridging education programs: A scoping review.

AIM: The aim of this scoping review is to summarize and critically evaluate research focused on nursing bridging education programs internationally. Specifically, this review addresses bridging from a: (1) Personal Support Worker (or similar) to a Registered Practical Nurse (or similar); and (2) Registered Practical Nurse (or similar) to a Registered Nurse. BACKGROUND: Nursing bridging education programs support learners to move from one level of educational preparation or practice to another. These programs can therefore increase nursing workforce capacity. Global healthcare systems have faced nursing shortages for decades. Moreover, the presently insufficient nursing workforce is confronting an ever-increasing volume of needed healthcare that is rising with the global ageing demographic shift. DESIGN: The Joanna Briggs Institute methods for scoping reviews, combined with Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) guidelines, were used with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). METHODS: MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL, EMBASE and SCOPUS databases were searched. Articles published in English that included Personal Support Workers, Registered Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses and/or nurses in similar categories who were studied through the process of a nursing bridging education program were included in the review. The study search was limited to papers published after 2005 (i.e., the beginning of nurse workload "overload" according to the Canadian Nurses Association). Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis was used in a content analysis of the included studies. RESULTS: A total of 15 articles published between 2005 and 2022 were included. Four themes were generated: (1) participating in bridging education programs fuels both professional and personal development; (2) nursing bridging education programs enhance diversity in the nursing workforce; (3) student nurses do not anticipate the challenges associated with participating in a bridging program; and (4) mentor-mentee connection promotes academic learning and successful completion of nursing bridging education programs. CONCLUSIONS: Despite experiencing challenges, participation in/completion of nursing bridging education programs leads to successful role transitioning and self-reported fulfillment of personal and professional aspirations. This review revealed the need for bridging programs to accommodate the unique needs of student nurses. Incorporation of support services, mentorship and faculty familiarity with varying nursing educational backgrounds facilitates role transitions by reducing the perceived challenges of bridging and promoting connection to foster learning. Nursing bridging education programs allow greater numbers of nurses to be trained to build workforce capacity and enable care for the world's rapidly ageing population.

A Survey of Canadian Physiotherapists' and Physiotherapy Students' Knowledge and Use of Executive Functioning Assessments in Clinical Practice.

Purpose: This study examined what physiotherapists and physiotherapy students understand and know about executive functioning (EF), what EF outcome measures they use clinically, and whether their primary area of practice influences their assessment practices. Method: An open online survey was distributed to registered members of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association, its various divisions, and colleges of physiotherapy within Canada that took approximately 15 minutes to complete and was available for 13 months. Pearson correlation was used to assess the relationship between subjective and objective understanding and knowledge of EF (UKEF) and a one-way multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze differences in survey responses based on respondents' primary area of practice. Results: A total of 335 respondents consented to participate (completion rate = 78.4%). There was a significant moderate positive correlation between subjective and objective UKEF (r = 0.43; 95% CI: 0.32, 0.54; n = 260; p < 0.001). Significant differences in survey responses were related to physiotherapists' primary areas of practice (i.e., musculoskeletal, neurological, cardiorespiratory, or multi-systems; F12,555.89 = 2.29, p = 0.008; Wilks Λ = 0.880; partial η2 = 0.042). Conclusions: Respondents reported that they had good subjective UKEF, but this was only moderately correlated with objective UKEF.

Objectif : examiner ce que les physiothérapeutes et les étudiants en physiothérapie comprennent et savent sur le fonctionnement exécutif (FE), les mesures de résultats du FE qu'ils utilisent en clinique et si leur secteur primaire de pratique influe sur leurs pratiques d'évaluation. Méthodologie : les membres de l'Association canadienne de physiothérapie, ses diverses divisions et les ordres de physiothérapie du Canada ont reçu un sondage en ligne ouvert qui exigeait une quinzaine de minutes de leur temps et qui était disponible sur une période de 13 mois. Les chercheurs ont utilisé la corrélation de Pearson pour évaluer la relation entre la compréhension et les connaissances subjectives et objectives du FE (CCEF) et une analyse de variance multivariée unidirectionnelle pour analyser les différences entre les réponses au sondage d'après les secteurs primaires de pratique des répondants. Résultats : Au total, 335 répondants ont consenti à participer (taux d'achèvement = 78,4 %). Ils ont constaté une corrélation positive modérée significative entre les CCEF subjectives et objectives (r = 0,43; IC à 95 % : 0,32, 0,54; n = 260; p < 0,001). Des différences significatives dans les réponses au sondage étaient liées aux secteurs primaires de pratique des physiothérapeutes (musculosquelettique, neurologique, cardiorespiratoire ou multisystémique; F12,555,89 = 2,29; p = 0,008; Λ de Wilks = 0,880; η2 partiel = 0,042). Conclusions : les répondants ont déclaré qu'ils avaient de bonnes CCEF, mais leur réponse était seulement corrélée modérément avec les CCEF objectives.

The role of nurses in inpatient geriatric rehabilitation units: A scoping review.

AIMS: (1) To review and synthesize research on the contributions of nurses to rehabilitation in inpatient geriatric rehabilitation units (GRUs), and (2) to compare these reported contributions to the domains of international rehabilitation nursing competency models. The roles and contributions of nurses (e.g. Registered Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses) in GRUs are non-specific, undervalued, undocumented and unrecognized as part of the formal Canadian rehabilitation process. DESIGN: Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework for scoping reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines were used. METHODS: Six databases were searched for relevant literature: MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, SCOPUS and Nursing and Allied Health. English articles were included if they examined nursing roles or contributions to inpatient geriatric rehabilitation. Integrated synthesis was used to combine the qualitative and quantitative data, and thematic analysis was used for coding. Three sets of international competency models were amalgamated to explore how different nurse roles in geriatric rehabilitation were portrayed in the included literature. RESULTS: Eight studies published between 1991 and 2020 were included in the review. Five main geriatric rehabilitation nursing roles were generated from synthesis of the domains of international rehabilitation nursing competency models: conserver, supporter, interpreter, coach and advocate. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses working in inpatient geriatric rehabilitation are recognized more for their role in conserving the body than their roles in supporting, interpreting, coaching and advocacy. Interprofessional team members appear to be less sure of the nurses' role in the rehabilitation unit. Nurses themselves do not acknowledge the unique rehabilitation aspects of care for older adults. Enhancing formal education, or adding continuing education courses, to facilitate role clarity for nurses in geriatric rehabilitation could improve nurses' and interprofessional healthcare team members' understandings of the possible contributions of nurses working in rehabilitation settings.

A Systematic Review of the Outcome Measures Used to Evaluate Interprofessional Learning by Health Care Professional Students During Clinical Experiences.

Interprofessional education (IPE) occurs when members of more than one health or social care profession learn interactively together to improve interprofessional collaboration and health care delivery. Interprofessional experiences provide students with the skills and knowledge needed to work in a collaborative manner; however, there is no review on the outcome measures used to assess the effectiveness of IPE learning. The current systematic review examined the outcome measures used to assess interprofessional learning during student clinical experiences. An electronic search of databases retrieved trials of health professional students who completed an IPE intervention during a student clinical experience. Methodological quality of twenty-five studies meeting the inclusion criteria published between 1997 and 2018 was scored independently by two raters using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database and the Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research tool. The Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale was used most frequently to assess interprofessional learning during a student clinical experience. This review provides a summary of outcome measures for educators to consider for evaluation of interprofessional activities during student clinical placements and serves to inform future conversations regarding the use and development of outcome measures to provide evidence for student achievement of IPE objectives and competencies.

Decreased Neurogenesis Increases Spatial Reversal Errors in Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus).

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis has been proposed to both aid memory formation and disrupt memory. We examined the role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis in spatial working and reference memory in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), a passerine bird that relies on spatial memory for cache retrieval and foraging. We tested spatial working and spatial reference memory in birds that had received methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM), a neurotoxin that decreases hippocampal neurogenesis. MAM treatment significantly reduced neurogenesis in the hippocampus quantified by doublecortin (DCX) labeling of newly divided and migrating neurons. MAM treatment had little effect on the working or reference memory but caused an increase in errors on the reference memory task following reversal. Working memory for recently visited spatial locations and reference memory for familiar spatial locations were thus unaffected by a reduction in neurogenesis. An increase in errors following reference memory reversal may indicate that adult hippocampal neurogenesis aids in pattern separation, the differentiation of similar memories at the time of encoding.

The effects of physical exercise on executive function in community-dwelling older adults living with Alzheimer's-type dementia: A systematic review.

Executive function deficit is an indicator of Alzheimer's-type dementia and manifests as disruptions of attentional control, memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, and reasoning, among other cognitive problems. Physical exercise is suggested to have a protective effect on global cognition with aging. However, whether it influences executive function in people living with Alzheimer's-type dementia specifically is unknown. The current systematic review examined the efficacy of physical exercise on executive function performance in community-dwelling older adults living with Alzheimer's-type dementia. An electronic search of databases retrieved randomized and non-randomized controlled trials of community-dwelling older adults diagnosed with Alzheimer's-type dementia who completed a physical exercise intervention and who were assessed using an executive function outcome measure. Methodological quality of six studies meeting the inclusion criteria published between 2009 and 2016 was scored independently by two raters using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database and a Cochrane informed domain-based assessment of risk of bias. Trends toward improvement in executive function scores were seen across all six studies, and significant improvement was seen in four of the eligible studies. Future studies should explore the benefits of the American College of Sports Medicine recommended 150 min of physical exercise per week with select measures of executive function.

Memory systems in the rat: effects of reward probability, context, and congruency between working and reference memory.

The interaction of working and reference memory was studied in rats on an eight-arm radial maze. In two experiments, rats were trained to perform working memory and reference memory tasks. On working memory trials, they were allowed to enter four randomly chosen arms for reward in a study phase and then had to choose the unentered arms for reward in a test phase. On reference memory trials, they had to learn to visit the same four arms on the maze on every trial for reward. Retention was tested on working memory trials in which the interval between the study and test phase was 15 s, 15 min, or 30 min. At each retention interval, tests were performed in which the correct WM arms were either congruent or incongruent with the correct RM arms. Both experiments showed that congruency interacted with retention interval, yielding more forgetting at 30 min on incongruent trials than on congruent trials. The effect of reference memory strength on the congruency effect was examined in Experiment 1, and the effect of associating different contexts with working and reference memory on the congruency effect was studied in Experiment 2.

The interaction between working and reference spatial memories in rats on a radial maze.

The interaction of reference and working memory was studied in rats on an eight-arm radial maze. Each trial involved a two-phase procedure in which a rat was forced to enter four arms on the maze in a study phase and then was allowed to choose among all eight arms in a test phase given 5-s later, with choice of only the previously unvisited arms rewarded. For each rat, two arms on the maze were designated as reference memory arms because they were never entered in the study phase and were always rewarded in the test phase. The other two arms never entered in the study phase and rewarded in the test phase were working memory arms and varied randomly from trial to trial. In Experiment 1, rats showed acquisition of equivalent preference for entering the reference and working memory arms in their first four choices of the test phase. Subsequent tests carried out in Experiment 2 compared performance at 5-s, 1-h, and 24-h retention intervals when reference memory and working memory were congruent and incongruent. Higher accuracy for choice of reference memory arms than working memory arms appeared at the 1-h and 24-h retention intervals on congruent tests but not on incongruent tests. A process dissociation procedure analysis indicated that working memory but not reference memory declined over the 24-h retention interval. The interaction of working and reference memory was shown by superior choice of reference memory arms on congruent tests than on incongruent tests at 1-h and 24-h retention intervals but not at the 5-s retention interval. These findings suggest that working and reference memory are independent systems that can facilitate and compete with one another. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Tribute to Tom Zentall.