Aims and objectives
To synthesise evidence regarding vaccination intention, identify factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy among healthcare professionals and the general populations globally.
...Background
As COVID‐19 vaccine becomes available worldwide, attention is being directed to community vaccine uptake, to achieve population‐wide immunity. A number of factors have been reported to influence vaccine intention.
Methods
Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic search of COVID‐19 vaccination intention related literature published on or before 31 December 2020 from seven databases was undertaken.
Results
Thirty articles were included in this systematic review. Overall COVID‐19 vaccination intention during the first year of the pandemic ranged from 27.7% to 93.3%. Findings highlighted that socio‐demographic differences, perceptions of risk and susceptibility to COVID‐19 and vaccine attributes influenced vaccination intention. Healthcare professionals particularly, nurses have higher vaccine hesitancy reportedly due to concerns regarding vaccine safety and efficacy and mistrust of health authorities. Negative information about COVID‐19 vaccines in the social media and low confidence in the health system were associated with lower acceptability among the community. Interestingly, cumulative increase in COVID‐19 caseloads of countries over time was not associated with vaccination intention.
Conclusions
The significant variability in vaccine intention rates worldwide would hamper efforts to achieve immunity against COVID‐19. Nurses’ concerns about vaccine safety and efficacy need to be addressed to increase vaccine acceptance and maximise their influence on vaccination decision in the community. As misinformation through social media negatively impacts vaccination uptake, authoritative and reliable information on vaccine attributes, disease risks and vaccination benefits are needed.
Relevance to clinical practice
Concerns about vaccine safety and efficacy including misinformation are important contributors to vaccine hesitancy. Addressing these factors, particularly among nurses who are considered trusted influencers of vaccination decisions in the community is an important strategy for pandemic preparedness.
Self-management is important in reducing coronary risk factors and in preventing recurrent cardiac events. An enabling factor that promotes self-management among patients with coronary heart disease ...(CHD) is self-efficacy. However, there is no standardized measure that captures self-efficacy and self-management concurrently in this population.
The authors of this study report on the development and validation of a brief scale to measure self-efficacy and self-management in patients with CHD.
Scale development and testing comprised (1) item generation, (2) content validity, and (3) pilot testing. The Heart Health Self-Efficacy and Self-Management (HH-SESM) scale includes 2 constructs: self-efficacy and self-management, measured concurrently. Components of the HH-SESM scale consisted of items related to behavioral and coronary risk factor modification. Survey data from 143 participants were used in exploratory factor analyses to test the factorial validity and internal consistency of the scale.
Twelve items with the same response format were included in the exploratory factor analysis. The factor analysis revealed a single-factor solution accounting for 36.7% and 36.5% of the variance in scores of the self-efficacy and self-management scales, respectively. The correlation (r = 0.72, P < .001) between the self-efficacy and self-management constructs indicates moderate convergent validity. Cronbach α of self-efficacy (0.83) and self-management (0.81) constructs showed good internal consistency.
The HH-SESM is a brief, easy-to-administer, and reliable measure of self-efficacy and self-management in patients with CHD.
Aims and objectives. To examine the association between trait emotional intelligence and learning strategies and their influence on academic performance among first‐year accelerated nursing ...students.
Design. The study used a prospective survey design.
Methods. A sample size of 81 students (100% response rate) who undertook the accelerated nursing course at a large university in Sydney participated in the study. Emotional intelligence was measured using the adapted version of the 144‐item Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. Four subscales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire were used to measure extrinsic goal motivation, peer learning, help seeking and critical thinking among the students. The grade point average score obtained at the end of six months was used to measure academic achievement.
Results. The results demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between emotional intelligence scores and critical thinking (r = 0.41; p < 0·001), help seeking (r = 0.33; p < 0·003) and peer learning (r = 0.32; p < 0·004) but not with extrinsic goal orientation (r = −0.05; p < 0·677). Emotional intelligence emerged as a significant predictor of academic achievement (β = 0.25; p = 0·023).
Conclusion. In addition to their learning styles, higher levels of awareness and understanding of their own emotions have a positive impact on students’ academic achievement. Higher emotional intelligence may lead students to pursue their interests more vigorously and think more expansively about subjects of interest, which could be an explanatory factor for higher academic performance in this group of nursing students.
Relevance to clinical practice. The concepts of emotional intelligence are central to clinical practice as nurses need to know how to deal with their own emotions as well as provide emotional support to patients and their families. It is therefore essential that these skills are developed among student nurses to enhance the quality of their clinical practice.
Breastfeeding support from health professionals can be effective in influencing a mother's decision to initiate and maintain breastfeeding. However, health professionals, including nursing students, ...do not always receive adequate breastfeeding education during their foundational education programme to effectively help mothers. In this paper, we report on a systematic review of the literature that aimed to describe nursing and other health professional students' knowledge and attitudes towards breastfeeding, and examine educational interventions designed to increase breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes amongst health professional students.
A systematic review of peer reviewed literature was performed. The search for literature was conducted utilising six electronic databases, CINAHL, MEDLINE, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane, for studies published in English from January 2000 to March 2017. Studies focused on nursing students' or other health professional students' knowledge, attitudes or experiences related to breastfeeding. Intervention studies to improve knowledge and attitudes, were also included. All papers were reviewed using the relevant Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist.
Fourteen studies were included in the review. This review indicates that in some settings, health professional students demonstrated mid-range scores on breastfeeding attitudes, and their knowledge of breastfeeding was limited, particularly in relation to breastfeeding assessment and management. All of the studies that tested a specialised breastfeeding education programme, appeared to increase nursing students' knowledge overall or aspects of their knowledge related to breastfeeding. Several factors were found to influence breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes, including timing of maternal and child health curriculum component, previous personal breastfeeding experience, gender, cultural practices and government legislation.
Based on this review, it appears that nursing curriculum, or specialised programmes that emphasise the importance of breastfeeding initiation, can improve breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes and students' confidence in helping and guiding breastfeeding mothers.
Given the increasing complexity of acute care settings, high patient acuity and demanding workloads, new graduate nurses continue to require greater levels of support to manage rising patient ...clinical care needs. Little is known about how change in new graduate nurses' satisfaction with clinical supervision and the practice environment impacts on their transitioning experience and expectations during first year of practice. This study aimed to examine change in new graduate nurses' perceptions over the 12-month Transitional Support Program, and identify how organizational factors and elements of clinical supervision influenced their experiences.
Using a convergent mixed methods design, a prospective survey with open-ended questions was administered to new graduate nurses' working in a tertiary level teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia. Nurses were surveyed at baseline (8-10 weeks) and follow-up (10-12 months) between May 2012 and August 2013. Two standardised instruments: the Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale (MCSS-26) and the Practice Environment Scale Australia (PES-AUS) were used. In addition to socio-demographic data, single -item measures were used to rate new graduate nurses' confidence, clinical capability and support received. Participants were also able to provide open-ended comments explaining their responses. Free-text responses to the open-ended questions were initially reviewed for emergent themes, then coded as either positive or negative aspects of these preliminary themes. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data and the qualitative data was analysed using conventional content analysis (CCA). The study was approved by the relevant Human Research Ethics Committees.
Eighty seven new graduate nurses completed the follow-up surveys, representing a 76% response rate. The median age was 23 years (Range: 20 to 53). No change was seen in new graduate nurses' satisfaction with clinical supervision (mean MCSS-26 scores: 73.2 versus 72.2,
= 0.503), satisfaction with the clinical practice environment (mean PES-AUS scores: 112.4 versus 110.7,
= 0.298), overall satisfaction with the transitional support program (mean: 7.6 versus 7.8,
= 0.337), satisfaction with the number of study days received, orientation days received (mean: 6.4 versus 6.6,
= 0.541), unit orientation (mean: 4.4 versus 4.8,
= 0.081), confidence levels (mean: 3.6 versus 3.5,
= 0.933) and not practising beyond personal clinical capability (mean: 3.9 versus 4.0,
= 0.629). Negative responses to the open-ended questions were associated with increasing workload, mismatch in the level of support against clinical demands and expectations. Emergent themes from qualitative data included i) orientation and Transitional Support Program as a foundation for success; and ii) developing clinical competence.
While transitional support programs are helpful in supporting new graduate nurses in their first year of practice, there are unmet needs for clinical, social and emotional support. Understanding new graduate nurses' experiences and their unmet needs during their first year of practice will enable nurse managers, educators and nurses to better support new graduate nurses' and promote confidence and competence to practice within their scope.
Little is known regarding the transfer of bioscience knowledge gained during undergraduate nursing studies into clinical practice.
To explore the experiences of new registered nurses in applying ...bioscience concepts in their day-to-day nursing practice.
Descriptive qualitative design.
Fifteen recently graduated registered nurses (RNs) who were working in acute care settings participated in the study.
Semi-structured, face-to-face individual interviews were conducted. Interview data were audio-recorded and thematically analysed.
Four themes were identified from the qualitative interviews. The first and second themes demonstrated nurses' realisation of the relevance of theoretical bioscience knowledge learnt within the classroom to their practice and how this evidence-based knowledge translated into confidence in decisions made. The third and fourth themes revealed the impact bioscience knowledge had on RNs' relationships with patients and family members, which was viewed as providing compassionate care.
The application of knowledge in biosciences gained during their undergraduate years, provided the basis for RNs to trust in their own clinical judgment and to speak with conviction. ‘Connecting the dots’ between bioscience knowledge and clinical practice provided the platform for RNs to gain and build trust with their patients. The practical utility of bioscience knowledge in everyday practice allowed RNs to contextualise their nursing care regimen and tailor holistic nursing care delivery to individual patient needs.
The self-identification of nursing students with the profession has been linked with a successful transition, from being a student to being a professional nurse. Although there is no empirical ...evidence, there are suggestions that students with high professional identity are more likely to persist and complete their studies in their chosen profession.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a professional identity scale and to determine the relationship between professional identity and student retention in a large group of first year nursing students.
A survey design was used to examine the professional identity of first year nursing students, as measured by the Macleod Clark Professional Identity Scale (MCPIS-9). Baseline data obtained from the initial surveys were then compared with student drop-out rates 12months later.
Exploratory factor analysis of the MCPIS-9 yielded a one-component solution, accounting for 43.3% of the variance. All 9 items loaded highly on one component, ranging from 0.50 to 0.79. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the MCPIS-9 was 0.83 and corrected item-total correlation values all scored well above the 0.3 cut-off. Students who: were females, had previous nursing-related vocational training, reported nursing as their first choice, or engaged in nursing-related paid work, had statistically significant higher professional identity scores. Using logistic regression analysis, students with high professional identity scores at baseline were more likely to be still enrolled in the nursing program at 12months, controlling for gender, language spoken at home and engagement in nursing-related employment. These results support the psychometric properties of the MCPIS-9.
Professional identity has a direct relationship with student retention in the nursing program. It is important to adequately measure professional identity in nursing students for the purpose of monitoring and identifying students who are at risk of leaving nursing programs.
In nursing, expectations of honesty and integrity are clearly stipulated throughout professional standards and codes of conduct, thus the concept of academic integrity has even more impetus in ...preparing students for graduate practice.
However, a disparity between policy and practice misses the opportunity to instil the principles of academic integrity, and at its core honesty, a pivotal trait in the nursing profession. This study draws upon the experience of the
nursing faculty to explore how academic integrity policy of deterrence operate in nursing education. While participants deplored cheating behaviours, they expressed frustration in having to 'police' large numbers of students who had
little awareness of the academic standards to meet policy requirements. In addition, they were cynical because of a perceived lack of severity in sanctions for students who repeatedly breached integrity. Participants expressed a moral
obligation as educators to meet student learning needs and preferred to engage with students in a more meaningful way to uphold academic integrity. The ambivalence to detect and report breaches in integrity undermines the effectiveness
of policy. Therefore, faculty must recognise the importance of their role in detecting and escalating cases of dishonesty and execute deterrence in a more consistent way. To do this, greater support at an institutional level, such as
smaller class sizes, inclusion in decision making around sanctions and recognition of additional workload, will enable faculty to uphold policy. Although policing was not their preferred approach, the role of faculty in detecting and
reporting cases of misconduct is crucial to increase the certainty of students getting caught, which is essential if policy is to be effective in deterring dishonest behaviour. Author abstract
IntroductionWhile healthcare transition (HCT) interventions are recognised as an important area in paediatric rehabilitation, there has been limited research focusing on young people with spinal cord ...injuries (SCI). In this study, researchers will collaborate with young people with SCI and their parents/caregivers to develop, implement and evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a HCT intervention aimed at supporting young people with SCI during their transition from paediatric to adult healthcare services.Methods and analysisA participatory action research (PAR) approach will be used to co-develop the HCT intervention with young people with SCI aged 14–25 years and their parents/caregivers. Three phases will be conducted to address the five objectives of this study. Phase 1 will use semi-structured interviews to explore young people and parent/caregivers’ experiences of HCT. In Phase 2a, both young people and parent/caregivers will be co-researchers. They will be included in the analysis of the interviews and will be asked to participate in co-design workshops to inform the development of a prototype HCT intervention. In Phase 2b, using focus groups, feedback on the prototype HCT intervention will be collected. In Phase 3, the refined prototype HCT intervention will be implemented, and young people with SCI and parent/caregivers will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the HCT intervention in semi-structured interviews. A reference group, including stakeholders and end users, will be consulted at different time points.Ethics and disseminationThe study has received ethics approval from Western Sydney University Human Research and Ethics Committee (H14029). The researcher will use the results of this study as chapters in a thesis to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy degree. The findings will be disseminated via publication in peer-reviewed journals and will be presented at local, national or international conferences.Trial registration numberACTRN12621000500853
Aim. This paper reports a study examining the influence of age, ethnicity and part‐time employment on nursing students’ academic performance for second year pathophysiology and nursing practice ...subjects.
Background. Age and ethnicity are known to be significant predictors of academic achievement among nursing students. The endemic nursing shortage has increased the impetus to diversify, resulting in more mature‐age students and students from diverse ethnic and cultural groups in nursing programmes. There is increasing pressure for nursing students to participate in part‐time employment whilst undertaking higher education, and this may affect their academic performance.
Methods. A prospective, quantitative survey design was used to collect data from a regional university in Australia over a 2‐year period from 2001 to 2002. A total of 267 nursing students were included in the study.
Findings. More than three‐quarters (78%) of second year students were participating in paid employment, with the majority in nursing‐related jobs. Of those working, half did so more than 16 hours per week during the semester. Students who were not in paid employment had the highest academic achievements in both pathophysiology and nursing practice. Age was positively related with academic performance, but hours of part‐time employment and ethnicity were negatively associated with academic performance, with the amount of time spent in paid employment being the strongest predictor of academic performance in both pathophysiology and nursing practice.
Conclusion. Working more than 16 hours per week had a detrimental impact on the academic performance of nursing students. More importantly, this study shows that nursing‐related employment is not advantageous to students’ academic performance, even for a nursing practice‐based subject. If the current practice of employing nursing students in clinical settings is to continue, this experience needs to be aligned to the academic curriculum if it is to be beneficial to students’ knowledge and skill acquisition.
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