Critical care nursing education and practice in Canada and Australia: a comparative review

Development and validation of a core competency scale for nursing internship supervisors

BACKGROUND

Clinical practicums are a crucial part of nursing education wherein nursing internship supervisors (NIS) play a vital role in facilitating hands-on experience. However, many NIS start their teaching roles without adequate educational training, despite the importance of this task. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and validate a reliable and credible core competency scale for NIS.

METHODS

We used the framework from the Academy of Medical Educators for the training of NIS in healthcare. We combined a literature review, theory-based inquiry, qualitative interviews, and expert consultation to create the initial scale. The final scale underwent comprehensive evaluation by 653 NIS and 653 nursing internship students from three leading hospitals in Luzhou, Sichuan Province, resulting in a total of 1306 participants.

RESULTS

The study produced the Core Competency Scale for NIS, a refined instrument covering six dimensions (professional socialized mentoring capacity, clinical teaching competencies, student counseling communication and coordination skills, nursing process competencies, curriculum design capacity, clinical problem-solving skills) and 39 items. The scale showed a content validity index of 0.98 and strong criterion-related validity, with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.73 (p < 0.01) against the Clinical Teaching Effectiveness Instrument scale. Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.973 to 0.990, indicating high reliability and validity.

CONCLUSION

The Core Competency Scale for NIS demonstrates robust reliability and validity, serving as a valuable tool for assessing the core competencies of nursing instructors. It provides a strong foundation for the development and application of training programs tailored to enhance the skills of nursing faculty in the clinical setting.

COVID-19 pandemic: the impact on Canada’s intensive care units

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the precarious demand-capacity balance in Canadian hospitals, including critical care where there is an urgent need for trained health care professionals to dramatically increase ICU capacity.

The impact of the pandemic on ICUs varied significantly across the country with provinces that implemented public health measures later and relaxed them sooner being impacted more severely. Pediatric ICUs routinely admitted adult patients. Non-ICU areas were converted to ICUs and staff were redeployed from other essential service areas. Faced with a lack of critical care capacity, triage plans for ICU admission were developed and nearly implemented in some provinces.

Twenty eight percent of patients in Canadian ICUs who required mechanical ventilation died. Surviving patients have required prolonged ICU admission, hospitalization and extensive ongoing rehabilitation. Family members of patients were not permitted to visit, resulting in additional psychological stresses to patients, families, and healthcare teams. ICU professionals also experienced extreme psychological stresses from caring for such large numbers of critically ill patients, often in sub-standard conditions. This resulted in large numbers of health workers leaving their professions.

This pandemic is not yet over, and it is likely that new pandemics will follow. A review and recommendations for the future are provided.

Factors affecting the nurse-patients' family communication in intensive care unit of kerman: a qualitative study

INTRODUCTION

The communication between nurses and patients' families impacts patient well-being as well as the quality and outcome of nursing care, this study aimed to demonstrated the facilitators and barriers which influence the role of communication among Iranian nurses and families member in ICU.

METHODS

This study is a qualitative study with content analysis. Participants were eight registered nurses and ten of patients' families. Patients were admitted to the ICU of two large university hospitals in Kerman, Iran. We used non-structured interviews for data collection. All interviews were transcribed verbatim with a simultaneous, constant comparative analysis of the audio tapes.

RESULTS

According to data analysis, facilitative factors between nurses and families' communication consisted of spiritual care, emotional support, Participation, notification and consultation and barriers that were misunderstandings regarding treatment, job and patient difficulties.

CONCLUSION

The findings led into the recognition of the important barriers and facilitators in communication between ICU team and the family of the patients. By identification of the barriers and facilitators of communication, establishing new rules and using creative methods in education and establishing the communication of ICU team especially using patient-based approach we can have effective communication.