Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland. Electronic address: hanishdevbhurtun@gmail.com.
Nursing students may face significant stress in their clinical learning environment and may use coping strategies to alleviate such stresses. However, little empirical evidence exists about the evolution of such stresses and coping strategies across study years. The aim of this study was to explore changes in stress levels and coping strategies among nursing students in clinical learning environment. Nursing students (N = 131) were followed during their first and second study year. Descriptive statistics and paired sample t-tests were used to measure changes in the variables within the same cohort. Nurse students perceived more stress in their second clinical practice compared to first one, with mean scores of 1.03 and 1.66, respectively. Stress from lack of professional knowledge and skills remained the main stress factor while transference was the main coping strategy across the two study years. Nursing educators should support nursing students to develop effective coping strategies from clinical stressors, especially from stressors such as lack of professional knowledge and skills and prepare their students mentally for clinical placement.
Health and social care education is highly important for preparing future professionals for their future roles in sustainable health and social care. However, previous studies have emphasized that health and social care educators' competence is complex and poorly defined. Thus, there is a clear need for a psychometrically validated instrument to enable clarification and assessment of the required skills.
To develop and psychometrically validate an instrument (the HeSoEduCo) for assessing health and social care educators' competence in higher and professional education.
Cross-sectional study.
A HeSoEduCo instrument, with items inviting 1-4 Likert scale responses, was developed, based on one systematic review and one qualitative study, then validated in terms of face, content and construct validity and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha values). All health and social care educators based in all 21 universities of applied sciences in Finland and seven vocational colleges were subsequently invited to participate in a large-scale application of the instrument in fall 2018. In total, responses of 390 of these educators are analyzed here.
The face and content validity of 71 newly developed items were assessed by experts in two evaluation rounds. The final content validity showed high scores for the instrument's relevance and clarity. Confirmatory factor analysis (to test construct validity) yielded eight factors (43-items remaining), defining the following competence areas of educators: evidence-based practice, digital collaborative learning, student-centered pedagogy, collaboration & societal, leadership & management, cultural & linguistic diversity, mentoring student into professional competence development and subject & curriculum. Cronbach's alpha values for the factors ranged from 0.70 to 0.89.
The instrument can be used to obtain self-evaluations of educators' competence when assessing their general competence levels and help human resources departments and managers to identify suitable continuous education programs for their staff.
The aims of this study were to describe the perceived work ability of unemployed individuals and to explore the association between perceived good work ability and sociodemographic, work-related and well-being factors.
The data were derived from the Finnish Regional Health and Well-being Study (ATH) collected by postal and Internet-based questionnaires in 2014-2015. The random sample was selected from the Finnish National Population Register. The present study includes data from unemployed or laid-off respondents ( n=1975) aged 20-65 years. Logistic regression was used in the statistical analysis. Perceived work ability was measured with the Work Ability Score.
Factors significantly associated with good work ability were having young children living in the household, short-term unemployment, low or moderate physical strain in most recent job, moderate mental strain in most recent job, satisfaction with most recent job, good self-rated health and good quality of life. Good self-rated health (odds ratio=10.53, 95% confidence interval 5.90-18.80) was the most substantial factor in the multivariate model.
The findings provide further evidence on the factors related to good work ability of the unemployed. These factors should be considered when designing interventions for promoting work ability and to minimise the harmful effects of long-term unemployment.
Educators' ethical competence is of crucial importance for developing students' ethical thinking. Previous studies describe educators' ethical codes and principles. This article aims to widen the understanding of health- and social care educators' ethical competence in relation to core values and ethos.
The study is based on the didactics of caring science and theoretically links the concepts ethos and competence.
Data material was collected from nine educational units for healthcare and social service in Finland. In total 16 semi-structured focus group interviews with 48 participants were conducted. The interviews were analysed with a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke.
The study is approved by the Declaration of Helsinki, the legislation regarding personal data and the General Data Protection Regulation. The study received ethical permission from the University of Jyväskylä. Informed consent was obtained from all the educational units and participants in the study.
The findings are presented based on three general patterns, an ethical basic motive, an ethical bearing and ethical actions. Subthemes are Humane view of students as unique individuals with individual learning, Bearing of tactfulness and firmness, Bearing of perceptiveness and accessibility, Bearing of satisfaction and joy over student learning, Valuing bearing towards each oneself and colleagues, Ability to interact and flexibility, Collegiality and a supportive work community and Educators as role models and inspirators.
Educators' personal and professional ethos is crucial to student learning, personal growth and ethical reasoning. Therefore, it is important to further develop educators' training regarding ethical competence.
The study explored the impact of self-rated health (SRH) and work ability on employment, and examined the effects of meaningfulness, social networks and physical activity on health and work ability with a population-based cross-sectional survey data (n = 12 729) of full-time employed and unemployed workers. SRH, perceived work ability and levels of perceived meaningfulness, social networks and physical activity were all significantly better among employed workers compared to unemployed people. The results showed that work ability mediated the effect of health on employment and predicted employment. Meaningfulness, social networks and physical activity had direct positive effects on health and work ability, and also on employment. The results indicated that good health is a substantial element of good work ability, which in turn is needed to maintain or to get a job. Our findings suggested that perceiving one's life as meaningful, having a strong social network and being physically active are important predictors of good health as well as of good work ability. These could be contributing factors to re-employment among unemployed people.
Competent educators are needed to ensure that social and healthcare professionals are effective and highly competent. However, there is too little evidence-based knowledge of current and required enhancements of educators' competences in this field. The aim of this study was to describe social and healthcare educators' perceptions of their competence in education. The study had a qualitative design, based on interviews with educators and rooted in critical realism. Forty-eight participants were recruited from seven universities of applied sciences and two vocational colleges in Finland, with the assistance of contact persons nominated by the institutions. The inclusion criterion for participation was employment by an educational institution as a part-time or full-time, social and/or healthcare educator. Data were collected in the period February-April 2018. The participants were interviewed in 16 focus groups with two to five participants per group. The acquired data were subjected to inductive content analysis, which yielded 506 open codes, 48 sub-categories, nine categories and one main category. The educators' competence was defined as a multidimensional construct, including categories of educators' competences in practicing as an educator, subject, ethics, pedagogy, management and organisation, innovation and development, collaboration, handling cultural and linguistic diversity, and continuous professional development. Educators recognised the need for developing competence in innovation to meet rapid changes in a competitive and increasingly global sociopolitical environment. Enhancement of adaptability to rapid changes was recognised as a necessity. The findings have social value in identifying requirements to improve social and healthcare educators' competence by helping educational leadership to improve educational standards, construct a continuous education framework and create national and/or international curricula for teacher education degree programs to enhance the quality of education. We also suggest that educational leadership needs to establish, maintain and strengthen collaborative strategies to provide effective, adaptable support systems, involving educators and students, in their working practices.
This paper describes occupational health nurses' and school staff members' experiences of work ability maintenance carried out at schools and the development of ideas to promote the collaboration between occupational health care and school community and to enhance work ability maintenance. The data were collected in a baseline situation of an action research project to further plan and develop activities. The data were analysed by inductive content analysis. According to the results, school community staff members' work ability maintenance focused on the employee, the school community, school work and the working conditions as well as professional competence. The practical actions involved some individual and school-specific variation, focusing on actions to maintain individual and physical work ability. It seems that the collaboration between the school community and occupational health service for work ability maintenance took place at the individual level, but an obvious need for more structural collaboration emerged by several suggestions made by the participants (e.g. better information exchange between the school and occupational health care, improved collaboration between the school staff and the co-operative partners). The progress in collaboration may lead towards spontaneous collaboration, in which case both actors have the same target and work in a planned, continuous and natural way to ensure work ability maintenance in the school community.
This article is part of a long term project "Promoting the Occupational Well-Being of School Staff-Action Research Project in Finland and Estonia, 2009-2014." The purpose of this article is to describe the significance of action plans in the promotion of the occupational well-being of primary and upper secondary school staff in Finland and Estonia from 2010 to the turn of the year 2011-2012. An electronic open questionnaire was sent to occupational well-being groups in Finland (N=18) and in Estonia (N=39). In Finland, the questionnaire was responded to by 16 (n=16) occupational well-being groups, and in Estonia, by 38 (n=38) groups. The qualitative data were analyzed using the inductive-deductive method and content analysis. The obtained results indicate that the schools had named goals for action plans in all aspects of the promotion of occupational well-being in schools (worker and work, working conditions, professional competence, working community) and that these goals were mainly realized in the schools in a systematic way. Schools felt that the action plan for occupational well-being helped them to set goals for occupational well-being and that the planned actions were realized in a more systematic way than before.
This article describes the experiences of master students of nursing science in learning interpersonal communication competence through the simulation method. The exercises reflected challenging interactive situations in the field of health care. Few studies have been published on using the simulation method in the communication education of teachers, managers, and experts in this field.
The aim of this study is to produce information which can be utilised in developing the simulation method to promote the interpersonal communication competence of master-level students of health sciences.
This study used the qualitative, descriptive research method.
At the Department of Nursing Science, the University of Eastern Finland, students major in nursing science specialise in nursing leadership and management, preventive nursing science, or nurse teacher education.
Students from all three specialties taking the Challenging Situations in Speech Communication course participated (n=47).
Essays on meaningful learning experiences collected using the critical incident technique, underwent content analysis.
Planning of teaching, carrying out different stages of the simulation exercise, participant roles, and students' personal factors were central to learning interpersonal communication competence.
Simulation is a valuable method in developing the interpersonal communication competence of students of health sciences at the masters' level. The methods used in the simulation teaching of emergency care are not necessarily applicable as such to communication education. The role of teacher is essential to supervising students' learning in simulation exercises. In the future, it is important to construct questions that help students to reflect specifically on communication.
About the Authors Hanish Bhurtun, MSc, RN, is a PhD student, Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. Terhi Saaranen, PhD, RN, PHN, is an acting professor and docent, Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland. Matti Estola, PhD, is a senior lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, Joensuu Campus, University of Eastern Finland. Hannele Turunen, PhD, RN, is a full professor and chair, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio University Hospital, University of Eastern Finland. For more information, contact Hanish Dev Bhurtun at hanishb@uef.fi.
The aim of the study was to examine how first-year Finnish nursing students perceive stress and the coping strategies they use in the clinical learning environment.
Stress from the clinical learning environment is a recurrent problem in nursing education. This topic has not been explored in the Finnish context.
This is a cross-sectional study using data from 189 first-year nursing students. Students completed the Perceived Stress Scale and Coping Behavior Inventory; t-tests and Pearson correlation analyses were performed.
Our sample rarely experienced stress, with a mean stress score of 1.07 (SD = 0.49). A commonly reported stressor was lack of professional knowledge and skills (M = 1.49, SD = 0.82). Transference was the most common coping strategy.
Our findings may help nursing teachers understand stressors in the clinical learning environment and support their students to use effective coping strategies, such as problem-solving and optimistic attitudes.
