Professional responsibility and decision-making in the context of a disease-focused model of nursing care: The difficulties experienced by Spanish nurses

Motivations and expectations of generation Z nursing students: A post-pandemic career choice qualitative analysis

BACKGROUND

The global nursing shortage is a growing concern so recruiting and retaining Generation Z (Gen Z) students is vital to the sustainability of the profession.

PURPOSE

To explore the perceptions and expectations of first-year nursing students regarding the nursing profession, its working conditions, and how these factors influenced their career choices.

METHOD

Descriptive qualitative research design, employing an interpretive research approach and content analysis conducted following Graneheim & Lundman's method. Our study involved 105 Generation Z nursing degree students enrolled in first year at the Mar Nursing School in Barcelona, Spain in 2021. Data collection included voluntary written narratives about their career choice and questionnaires of demographic information and their healthcare experiences.

RESULTS

It became evident that Generation Z students' perceptions and expectations of nursing don't align with the actual professional experience. This mismatch could lead to disillusionment and attrition among these students.

CONCLUSIONS

Several factors (economic, aspirational, perception of nursing during the COVID-19, or gender) influence new students' career choice. These factors shape their expectations and often do not match actual working conditions in nursing. Educational institutions must prepare students by transferring cross-cutting competencies to effectively meet these challenges and avoid potential dropout from the profession.

Physiotherapists' Ethical Climate and Work Satisfaction: A STROBE-Compliant Cross-Sectional Study

(1) Background: This study aimed to examine the relationship between Spanish physical therapists' perceptions of the ethical climate, their moral sensitivity (awareness of ethical issues), and job satisfaction. (2) Methods: the study analyzed descriptive correlational data on 104 physical therapists from three Spanish metropolitan hospitals. Respondents completed a demographic data form, an ethical climate questionnaire, a job satisfaction survey, and a moral sensitivity scale. This study complies with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines. (3) Results: With a mean score of 4.2, physical therapists are typically content with their jobs. The mean scores for the moral sensitivity and ethical climate questionnaires are high, at 40.1 (SD 6.3) and 96.8 (SD 17.1), respectively. There is a significant positive correlation between job satisfaction and ethical climate (r between 0.59 and 0.79) but only a weak correlation between job satisfaction and moral sensibility (r between 0 and 0.32 for the three aspects measured). (4) Conclusions: Generally speaking, physical therapists reported that they had high job satisfaction, a positive workplace environment, and excellent management support. Despite a weak relationship with moral sensibility, there is a strong association between ethical behavior, hospital organization, and higher levels of job satisfaction. It is important to encourage the development of moral sensibilities to boost psychological well-being and therapeutic decision-making.

Effects of naturalistic decision-making model-based oncofertility care education for nurses and patients with breast cancer: a cluster randomized controlled trial

Purpose

This study examined the effects of an oncofertility education program on decisional conflict in nurses and patients with breast cancer.

Methods

A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted with 84 nurses of five breast care units. Three units were randomly selected from the five as the nurse experimental group. Nurses at the experimental group accepted the oncofertility education based on the naturalistic decision-making (NDM) model, while those at the control group accepted the other non-oncofertility education. We also collected data from female patients before and after the nurses’ educational training, respectively. The decisional conflict was measured using the Chinese version of the decisional conflict scale.

Results

Nurses in the experimental group had less decisional conflict after the oncofertility educational intervention than those in the control group. After the intervention, nurses with higher infertility knowledge scores had significantly lower decisional conflict. Single nurses had significantly higher decisional conflict than married nurses. A higher perceived barrier score was significantly associated with a higher decisional conflict score. Among patients with the same fertility intention scores, those in the experimental group had lower decisional conflict scores than those in the control group.

Conclusions

Our work demonstrates that NDM-based oncofertility care education is feasible and acceptable to improve nurse and patient decisional conflict. Educational training based on the NDM model decreased the decisional conflict regarding oncofertility care.

Trial registration.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04600869.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00520-022-07279-w.