Recruitment and retention of professional nurses are crucial issues for hospital departments of nursing. Recognizing the necessity to bridge the gap that persists between nursing education and nursing services, hospitals have designed programs to assist new nurses make the transition to current nursing practice. By helping individuals make the transition to current nursing practice it is hoped that staff nurses will be retained.

The primary objective of this project is the development and implementation of an educational program for the staff nurses for the effective management of Acute Confusion (AC), Delirium among hospitalized patients at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana.

One of the outgrowths of legislation enacted during the 1960's has been the deinstitutionalization of mentally retarded persons and the retention of others within the community. This study addressed the problem of nurses' perception of their competency to deal with this population wherever they might be encountered within community health care settings. The first hypothesis looked for differences in perceived competency based on the level of basic nursing education. Since sample sizes were not equal, the Kruskal Wallis test was utilized and a significant difference at the .001 alpha level was found. Hypothesis two looked for a relationship between perceived competency and degree of clinical contact with a mentally retarded population provided by the basic nursing preparation. Hypotheses three through six looked for relationships between perceived competency and adequacy of samples of content related to mental retardation provided by the basic nursing education: (1) risk factors; (2) etiology; (3) skills and techniques; (4) support systems. Hypothesis seven looked at the relationship between perception of competency and the adequacy of continuing education offerings to which nurses have been exposed. Hypothesis eight looked for a relationship between perceived competency and sustained personal contact with a mentally retarded person. A Pearson product moment correlation was run on each of these hypotheses and each revealed a positive significant relationship.

This study examined the effectiveness of a training program on the ability of registered nurse students to write complete nursing diagnoses. A comparison group was used as a control. There were 47 participants in the training group and 51 participants in the comparison group who received no training. Five hypotheses were used to examine the (1) complete nursing diagnoses, (2) labels, (3) clarifiers, (4) etiologies, and (5) mislabeled medical diagnoses or clinical problems as nursing diagnoses. As a pretest and posttest, participants in both groups viewed a video tape of a nursing situation and were asked to write nursing diagnoses. The training group received nine clock hours of classroom instruction on the nursing process of which three hours were on nursing diagnosis with a focus on the inclusion of label, clarifier, and etiology necessary for a complete nursing diagnosis. In the clinical component of the educational program the training group wrote nursing diagnoses as part of the nursing process. It was assumed that the comparison group did not receive comparable education. The mean difference of proportions between the pretest and posttest was computed for each group on the item tested by the hypotheses and for the difference between the two groups. Three of the five hypotheses tested in the study were accepted. The training group did have a significant increase in the average (mean) difference of proportions in the number of complete nursing diagnoses and etiologies and a significant decrease in the number of mislabeled nursing diagnoses. There was no significant difference in the number of labels and clarifiers. The training group did show a percentage increase in the number of labels and clarifiers written. There was little or no change in the comparison group over the time period of the study.

This study aims to increase the level of knowledge about the gerontological knowledge of a sample of registered nurses by creating a portable and concise continuing education seminar that is based upon the fundamental components of the normal aging process. The impact on the learning outcomes of an accredited continuing education seminar that was developed for this study was analyzed. The continuing education seminar focused on some of the major areas of social gerontology pertinent to nursing. Although other variables (age, gender, educational level, and previous gerontological training) were analyzed, none were found to have significant effect on the level of knowledge.

Maintaining high levels of academic integrity in nursing programs is critical to student success and the transition to professional practice. Integrity encompasses the values of trustworthiness and honesty. Nursing faculty need to determine if they are providing students with the resources and communication needed to maintain a culture of integrity. It is important for faculty to determine if students tend to rationalize or neutralize the psychological effects of dishonest behaviors. Finally, it is important to determine methods to eliminate violations of academic integrity in nursing education. The overall design of the dissertation provides three distinct articles designed to stand alone as potential articles for publication. This dissertation is a part of a larger collaborative effort with two other Teachers College Doctoral students. The methods and procedures are the same for all principal investigators. Chapters I through III and Chapter V are all uniquely my own. Chapter IV represents the collaborative effort presented in this dissertation. In a cross-sectional, quantitative study design, McCabe’s Academic Integrity Survey- Modified for Nursing Students (MAIS-MNS), a Knowledge Assessment of Academic Integrity, and a Demographics Questionnaire were completed by 442 pre-licensure nursing students. In the individual portion of this study, the relationships between perceived faculty support of academic integrity policies; perceived faculty response to cheating; neutralization; and age are examined to determine if relationships exist between the variables. Additionally, in the collaborative chapter, the variables of severity and perceived faculty support of academic integrity policies were compared to the willingness to report peer violations and program-wide strategies to improve a culture of integrity. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27 (IBM Inc., Armonk, NY, USA). Results indicated students who have higher perceived faculty support of academic integrity policies are less likely to rationalize academically dishonest behaviors. It was also found that younger students were more likely to rationalize dishonest behaviors. It is also important to consider from which source students are receiving academic integrity information. Course syllabi, first-year orientation, program counselors, faculty, deans and other administrators, and other students were all found to be significant predictors related to student perception of faculty support of academic integrity policies. Students who have higher perceptions of severity scores and higher perceptions of faculty support of academic integrity policies scores were found to be more willing to report peers. Additionally, having program-wide interventions, such as an honor code, could help strengthen the overall culture of integrity. Frequent communication and consistent academic integrity policies are vital for faculty to maintain throughout nursing programs Faculty should remain vigilant to changing trends in how students violate academic integrity violations and provide consistent messages.

This study employed a heuristic -participant evaluation of the instruction of the web-based Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) program using two research questions: (1) How well does the ECCO adhere to Bloom's theory of mastery learning and instruction; and (2) What effect, if any, does this have on the participant RN? Evaluation findings demonstrated that the ECCO is 66 hours of expository instruction with little to no meaningful feedback, correction, or enrichment activity, is not well aligned, and has significant design flaws related to objectives and transfer of instruction and to the processes of instruction. This results in the participant RN being left to his own devices to achieve mastery. Heuristic findings demonstrated the effect on the participant RN - feelings of frustration, resentment, fear, lack of confidence, and apprehension which in sum outweigh feelings of accomplishment and yield a compulsion to leave critical care practice. Discussion includes implications of findings and results, recommendations for the ECCO program improvement, and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Thesis (Master of Nursing)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / Nursing is a practice-based discipline, which makes experiential learning an important part of nursing education. The main purpose of experiential learning is to give students an opportunity to transfer theory into practice. It also equips the undergraduate student nurse with the skills and knowledge needed to provide high-quality care based on patients'/clients' needs and to produce competent and confident decision makers who are ready to accept personal and professional accountability. Experiential learning is accomplished by placing the undergraduate nursing students within a clinical learning environment. The success of the nursing programmes depends on appropriate clinical experience. The purpose of this research was to explore and describe the experiences of undergraduate nursing students during experiential learning in healthcare facilities at the Boland Overberg Campus in the Western Cape. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive design was applied. Data collection was done using focus-group interviews to ascertain the undergraduate student nurses' experiences during clinical practice in healthcare facilities in the Boland Overberg area. Thirty-eight undergraduate nursing students from Boland Campus were selected, using purposive sampling. The ethical principles relevant to this study were observed. Colaizzi's method of coding and thematic content analysis were used to interpret the data. The results of this study revealed that students were not satisfied with the clinical learning environment, which was not conducive to their learning. The students were not supported and supervised by the registered nurses in the facilities. This resulted in a lack of theory and practice integration. Furthermore, the results revealed that the students faced challenges during clinical practice. One of the most challenging factors was negative staff attitudes. It was evident that even though being in clinical settings was sometimes very challenging and frightening, there were also joyful moments. Seeing the patient recover gave students satisfaction and a reason to return the next day.

This study investigated Texas nurses' attitudes toward mandatory continuing education, and their perceptions of skill improvement, knowledge enrichment and improvement of health care to the public as a result of participation in twenty contact hours of continuing education programs as required by the Board of Nurse Examiners for the State of Texas. This sample of Texas nurses felt that the goals set forth by the Board of Nurse Examiners for the State of Texas had been met by participation in mandatory continuing education. However, given the small return rate, the attitudes of these nurses may not represent the attitudes of the majority of Texas nurses.

The purposes of this study are to determine the extent to which nursing education administrators accept the use of an adapted Montessori method in teaching basic nursing skills and to determine the feasibility of implementing such a method.