Publications by authors named "Irma Mikkonen"

Background: Palliative care is aimed at improving the quality of life of an individual with chronic noncommunicable disease and their care partners. Limitations in the provision of palliative care are mainly lack of knowledge and experience by nurses, fear of treating palliative persons, loss of control over treatment and fear of providing poor-quality palliative care to persons and care partners.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the perception, knowledge and attitudes of palliative care by nurses who use palliative care approaches in practice, as well as the difference in perception, knowledge and attitudes of palliative care between nurses in Slovenia and Finland.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Health professional education has been criticized for not integrating patient expertise into professional curricula to develop professional skills in patient empowerment.

Objective: To develop and translate a new expert patient-centered model for teaching empowerment into professional education about routine chronic care management.

Methods: Eight Finnish patients (known as expert patients), 31 students, and 11 lecturers from 4 European countries participated in a new pilot intensive educational module.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The purpose of this articl is to explore nursing students' experiences of dialogic group oral exams used in the assessment of a medical nursing course. We discuss a small-group, educator-facilitated exam (dialogue exam). The data were gathered in April 2015 via an online survey including open questions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This paper considers teachers' experiences of teaching undergraduate nursing students in a blended learning environment. The basic idea of the study programme was to support students to reflect on theory and practice, and provide with access to expert and professional knowledge in real-life problem-solving and decision making. Learning was organised to support learning in and about work: students worked full-time and this provided excellent opportunities for learning both in practice, online and face-to-face sessions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Advanced practice nursing expertise has been acknowledged worldwide as one response to the challenges arising from changes in society and health care. The roots of advanced practice nursing education are at the University of Colorado where the first known programme started in 1965. In many countries advanced practice nurses (APNs) have taken responsibility for routine patient care formerly carried out by physicians in order to reduce their workload.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Diabetes has reached pandemic proportions worldwide. To address and assist health care professionals in maintaining and updating their knowledge base on diabetes care, a multilateral project within the framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme and the Erasmus Curriculum Development - sub programme was initiated in 2008. Four European countries are involved in the project - Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Lithuania.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF