Rosie Stenhouse

Exploring the compassion deficit debate

Several recent high profile failures in the UK health care system have promoted strong debate on compassion and care in nursing. A number of papers articulating a range of positions within this debate have been published in this journal over the past two and a half years. These articulate a diverse range of theoretical perspectives and have been drawn together here in an attempt to bring some coherence to the debate and provide an overview of the key arguments and positions taken by those involved. In doing this we invite the reader to consider their own position in relation to the issues raised and to consider the impact of this for their own practice. Finally the paper offers some sense of how individual practitioners might use their understanding of the debates to ensure delivery of good nursing care.

Do emotional intelligence and previous caring experience influence student nurse performance? A comparative analysis

BACKGROUND Reports of poor nursing care have focused attention on values based selection of candidates onto nursing programmes. Values based selection lacks clarity and valid measures. Previous caring experience might lead to better care. Emotional intelligence (EI) might be associated with performance, is conceptualised and measurable. OBJECTIVES To examine the impact of 1) previous caring experience, 2) emotional intelligence 3) social connection scores on performance and retention in a cohort of first year nursing and midwifery students in Scotland. DESIGN A longitudinal, quasi experimental design. SETTING Adult and mental health nursing, and midwifery programmes in a Scottish University. METHODS Adult, mental health and midwifery students (n=598) completed the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-short form and Schuttes Emotional Intelligence Scale on entry to their programmes at a Scottish University, alongside demographic and previous caring experience data. Social connection was calculated from a subset of questions identified within the TEIQue-SF in a prior factor and Rasch analysis. Student performance was calculated as the mean mark across the year. Withdrawal data were gathered. RESULTS 598 students completed baseline measures. 315 students declared previous caring experience, 277 not. An independent-samples t-test identified that those without previous caring experience scored higher on performance (57.33±11.38) than those with previous caring experience (54.87±11.19), a statistically significant difference of 2.47 (95% CI, 0.54 to 4.38), t(533)=2.52, p=.012. Emotional intelligence scores were not associated with performance. Social connection scores for those withdrawing (mean rank=249) and those remaining (mean rank=304.75) were statistically significantly different, U=15,300, z=-2.61, p

Finding Our Voices in the Dangling Conversations: Co-producing Digital Stories About Dementia

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The relationship between emotional intelligence, previous caring experience and mindfulness in student nurses and midwives: A cross sectional analysis

lt;0.009. CONCLUSIONS Previous caring experience led to worse performance in this cohort. Emotional intelligence was not a useful indicator of performance. Lower scores on the social connection factor were associated with withdrawal from the course.

Emotional intelligence and nurse recruitment : Rasch and confirmatory factor analysis of the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire short form

The concept of power, as embodied by the storyteller’s voice, is key to the digital storytelling process. Stenhouse and Tait reflect on attempts to promote the voice of people with dementia during a digital storytelling workshop. Adaptations to the usual digital storytelling process risked silencing participants’ voices through 1:1 facilitation, holding the narrative ‘threads’ for participants and writing the scripts to enable people with dementia to engage. Facilitators’ engagement with issues of voice and power through reflection in and on action supported a co-creative relationship with participants, opening up spaces for their voices to be heard. The chapter also engages with the issue of authorial voice in the process of collaborative writing, resulting in a literary style that allows the voices of both authors to be heard.