Lack of compassion or poor discretion? Ways of addressing malpractice

Suitable, fit, competent and safe to practice nursing? Assessing nursing students' personal qualities in clinical placement-An integrative review

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This study aims to explore, describe, and synthesize the personal requirements student nurses are assessed in their clinical placement to be suitable, fit, competent, and safe for the nursing profession.

BACKGROUND

There are different terms and concepts used when describing what nursing students are assessed by regarding personal requirements needed to be eligible to enter the nursing profession. This is regulated and enforced mainly by different standards and guidelines.

DESIGN

An integrative review using Whittmore and Knafl's (2005) methodology.

METHODS

Searches were systematically conducted in CINAHL, Education Source, ERIC, Academic Source Elite, MEDLINE and EMBASE, NORART, SveMed+, and Bibliotek.dk. The PRISMA checklist for systematic reviews was used.

RESULTS

Eighteen studies were included in the review. The results present various factors student nurses are assessed by in clinical placements, which were categorized into three themes: attitude and personal characteristics, behavior, and basic knowledge. Assessing students is a complex and subjective endeavor, and decisions are based on a holistic assessment of several different aspects of the student's performance and behavior CONCLUSIONS: The personal requirements to be deemed suited for det nursing profession are complex and composed of several different components. Assessments are often based more on assessors' subjective standards and intuition than on the provided guidelines and standards. There is no universal understanding of which characteristics or qualities are considered necessary for a student to be deemed suited for the nursing profession.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

This study points at challenges with the assessment of nursing students today as there are no clear standards or understanding of the requirements needed.

Compassion, emotions and cognition: Implications for nursing education

Compassion is often understood as central to nursing and as important to ensure quality nursing and healthcare. In recent years, there has been a focus on strategies in nursing education to ensure compassionate nurses. However, it is not always clear how the concept of compassion is understood. Theoretical conceptualisations that lie behind various understandings of compassion have consequences for how we approach compassion in nursing education. We present some ways in which compassion is often understood, their philosophical underpinnings and the consequences these understandings can have for nursing education. We argue that it is useful for nursing education to understand compassion as a cognitive emotion and discuss how such an understanding can inform educational approaches to compassion.

Nurses' experiences of compassion when giving palliative care at home

BACKGROUND

Compassion is seen as a core professional value in nursing and as essential in the effort of relieving suffering and promoting well-being in palliative care patients. Despite the advances in modern healthcare systems, there is a growing clinical and scientific concern that the value of compassion in palliative care is being less emphasised.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore nurses' experiences of compassion when caring for palliative patients in home nursing care.

DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS

A secondary qualitative analysis inspired by hermeneutic circling was performed on narrative interviews with 10 registered nurses recruited from municipal home nursing care facilities in Mid-Norway.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The Norwegian Social Science Data Services granted permission for the study (No. 34299) and the re-use of the data.

FINDINGS

The compassionate experience was illuminated by one overarching theme: valuing caring interactions as positive, negative or neutral, which entailed three themes: (1) perceiving the patient's plea, (2) interpreting feelings and (3) reasoning about accountability and action, with subsequent subthemes.

DISCUSSION

In contrast to most studies on compassion, our results highlight that a lack of compassion entails experiences of both negative and neutral content.

CONCLUSION

The phenomenon of neutral caring interactions and lack of compassion demands further explorations from both a patient - and a nurse perspective.