Patricia E. Freed

Writing Therapeutic Letters in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Promoting Relational Skill Development

Although therapeutic letters (TLs) have been included in graduate nursing programs, studies have not examined the impact of TLs on the clinical learning of undergraduate students. This qualitative study was part of a larger project that introduced TLs into already established undergraduate clinical courses. Instructors prepared students for writing TLs by discussing their purpose and by providing a relevant article and examples. In all, 74 students participated in 12 focus group interviews. Interviews were audiotaped, professionally transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative description. Results suggest that TLs cultivate rapport building and the development of students’ relational skills. Although the assignment promoted clinical learning and reflection on helping relationships for the vast majority of students, a few students treated TLs as an instrumental activity. Implications for educating health professionals are described.

FUTURES THINKING: Preparing Nurses to Think for Tomorrow

&NA; Nursing students must be prepared with skills to help them think for the future. Thinking for the future means that students have the ability to envision desired futures for nursing and health care, embrace change and complexity, and believe that they can make a difference. Readers are introduced to the field of futures studies along with strategies and tools to teach futures skills in the nursing curriculum. Basic ideas and assumptions underlying futures studies are presented, and an argument for the importance of futures thinking to nursing education is made.

It's the little things that count: the value in receiving therapeutic letters.

The focus of this qualitative study was to explore patients perceptions of having received a therapeutic letter (TL) from a nursing student. Patient feedback contributes to student learning and is especially salient when students are trying to understand complex relationships and to deliver care that is individualized and personalized. Four themes from recipient interviews were identified, which show the influence of TLs on the student-patient relationship and the benefits of TLs to patients who receive them. Strategies to promote relationship building, such as TL writing are needed, particularly when students are required to work with patients who have long-standing psychiatric and social disabilities and find these relationships challenging. Findings are discussed in light of the value of TLs to patients and as a powerful strategy for student learning.

Using lecture capture: A qualitative study of nursing faculty's experience

BACKGROUND As lecture capture technology becomes widely available in schools of nursing, faculty will need to master new technological skills and make decisions about recording their classroom lectures or other activities. OBJECTIVES This study sought to understand facultys experience of using a new lecture capture system. DESIGN AND SETTING This qualitative study used Krugers systematic approach to explore undergraduate nursing facultys first-time experience using a lecture capture system purchased by the university. METHOD Four focus groups were conducted with a total of fourteen undergraduate faculty using lecture capture for the first-time. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and then analyzed by the researchers. RESULTS Four themes were identified from the faculty interviews. Two of the themes expressed facultys concerns about the teaching role, and two themes expressed the facultys concerns about student learning. CONCLUSION Participants experienced stress when learning to use the new lecture capture technology and struggled to resolve it with their own beliefs and teaching values. The impact of lecture capture on student learning, impact on class attendance, and the promotion of a culture of lecturing were revealed as important issues to consider when lecture capture becomes available.

Promoting cultures of thinking: transforming nursing education to transform nursing practice.

Contemporary nursing education is highly invested in the development of the academic, critical, and empirical aspects of education that represent the science of nursing, and concomitantly less attentive to the development of the creative, interpersonal aspects of education typically associated with the art of nursing. This represents a reversal of historic patterns in nursing education, but the pendulum may have swung so far that there could be costs to nursing practice unless the creative, interpersonal aspects of education can be reclaimed and balanced. Ideas and suggestions regarding how nurse educators might foster the creation of cultures of thinking, which represent whole-brain, integrated teaching approaches that are based on emerging neurocognitive evidence, are discussed.

Educating Undergraduate Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Students in Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Using an Online, Interactive Simulation

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an evidence-based practice used to identify, curtail and limit problematic abuse and dependence on alcohol and drugs. (Madras et al., 2009). Consisting of threemain components, SBIRT has proven to be a successful protocol to decrease the problem of substance abuse by assessing risk, using motivational interviewing skills to create a behavioral change, and identifying those patients whose substance abuse shows a need for specialty treatment (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 2015). Use of SBIRT by health care providers identifies substance use that increases risk of chronic illness and disease, mental health problems, and social problems. It can be integrated into many health care settings where health care providers can use a screening tool to assess risk, provide a behavior change strategy focused on helping the patient reduce or stop their use of alcohol and other substances, and link the patient to specialized substance use treatment in conjunction with providing needed support. Studies have shown that investing in SBIRT training for nurses, physicians, counselors, therapists, social workers and pastoral care workers can result in healthcare savings cost ranging from

Action methods in the classroom: creative strategies for nursing education.

3.91 to

Teen Mothers' Mental Health.

5.60 for each dollar spent (Barbossa, Cowell, Bray, & Aldridge, 2015; Quanbeck, Lang, Enami, & Brown, 2010.) Additionally, knowledge of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) guidelines are extremely important for all healthcare providers to know when discussing behavioral changes,