Nursing Students' Experience of a Poverty Simulation and Its Impact on Empathy and Social Justice Awareness: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.

Holistic nursing practice requires an understanding of the constraints of poverty as one of the social determinants of health. Future nurses need to be change agents for social justice. A descriptive, qualitative study was conducted to explore students' experience of the Missouri Association for Community Action Poverty Simulation© (CAPS) and its impact on empathy and social justice awareness among a purposive sample of 56 sophomore baccalaureate nursing students at a public university in the Northeastern United States. Inductive thematic analysis was applied to data collected from a postparticipation reflection paper. Five themes emerged: (a) emotions, (b) personal history of poverty, (c) empathy, (d) rising advocacy, and (e) lessons learned. The results support that the CAPS simulation provides an experiential opportunity which impacts empathy and foundational attitudes to be a change agent for social justice. Recommendations include structured education about social determinants of health prior to the CAPS simulation, continued education throughout nursing curricula, and experiential opportunities to apply social justice skills before graduation.

Can a Checklist Facilitate Recognition of a Transfusion-Associated Adverse Event by Prelicensure Nursing Students?

BACKGROUND: Early identification of a transfusion-associated adverse event (TAAE) is key to patient safety. Research has indicated that use of a TAAE checklist resulted in greater frequency of TAAE recognition behaviors. PURPOSE: To explore whether use of a TAAE checklist resulted in greater frequency of TAAE recognition behaviors among nursing students. METHODS: A prospective, randomized controlled study was conducted with 62 nursing students playing the role of a registered nurse in a simulation of a patient exhibiting clinical indicators of a TAAE. Subjects were randomly assigned to have or not have a TAAE checklist. Time to recognition of the TAAE was measured. RESULTS: The checklist group (CG) identified TAAEs on average 4 minutes sooner than the non-CG (P < .001). CG subjects were also significantly less likely to miss TAAEs completely. CONCLUSIONS: A checklist may improve the safety of transfusions by promoting earlier recognition and treatment of TAAEs.

Nursing Faculty Coaches: Uncovering a Hidden Resource for NCLEX-RN Success.

This article presents a nursing faculty department's strategy to empower nursing students identified as being at risk for not passing the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) on the first attempt while significantly increasing the nursing program's overall first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate. These students were identified as being at risk because of their low scores on standardized assessments with national norms predicting the likelihood of passing the NCLEX on the first attempt. This account details the NCLEX-RN Coaching Partnership as an exemplar to support nursing students' success through caring relationships with nursing faculty. Faculty coaches offered support, fostered confidence, and maintained accountability with the identified nursing students. The students provided positive feedback regarding the NCLEX-RN Coaching Partnership and ultimately attributed their passing to the coaching relationships. Seven of the eight identified students passed the examination on the first attempt; the overall program's first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate increased significantly from 78% to 90%.

Finding Meaning Through Kristen Swanson's Caring Behaviors: A Cornerstone of Healing for Nursing Education.

Swanson's (1991) middle range theory of caring has traditionally been used to define the care of patients and family members. Swanson's caring theory outlines five caring processes: knowing, being with, doing for, enabling, and maintaining belief (p. 163). Nurse educators can utilize these caring processes to teach nursing students by cultivating meaningful, healing relationships. This article presents an example of a nursing faculty member's application of this theory to her teaching pedagogy. This account serves to guide therapeutic teaching as well as to encourage further scholarly work examining the relationship between Swanson's caring theory and nursing education.

The other mother: a narrative analysis of the postpartum experiences of nonbirth lesbian mothers.

The purpose of this study was to develop a metastory of nonbiological lesbian mothers' postpartum experiences utilizing Riessman's structural approach to thematic analysis. Ten nonbirth lesbian mothers were interviewed. Each shared a unique story of her first year of motherhood. Themes were individually analyzed within each story. The metastory of the postpartum experiences of nonbirth lesbian mothers revealed 6 themes including the following: At the mercy of health care providers, Nursing is the major difference between us, Defined by who I am not, Fighting for every piece of motherhood: The world can take them away, What's in a name?, and Epilogue: The new normal.

Great expectations: points of congruencies and discrepancies between incoming accelerated second-degree nursing students and faculty.

This study analyzes the expectations that incoming students and faculty bring to accelerated pre-licensure education programs for second-degree students. Although research supports the congruence of expectations between students and faculty as essential to learning, anecdotal evidence and single case reports suggest there may be important discrepancies in expectations of second-degree students and their faculty. Data are intended to support curriculum review, refinement, and innovation in these programs.