Measuring the impact of a 'point of view' disability simulation on nursing students' empathy using the Comprehensive State Empathy Scale.

Background: Although empathy is an integral component of professional practice and person-centred care, a body of research has identified that vulnerable patients groups frequently experience healthcare that is less than optimal and often lacking in empathy.

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of an immersive point-of-view simulation on nursing students' empathy towards people with an Acquired Brain Injury.

Setting And Participants: A convenience sample of 390 nursing students from a cohort of 488 participated in the study, giving a response rate of 80%.

"They have no idea of what we do or what we know": Australian graduates' perceptions of working in a health care team.

Globally it has been suggested that interprofessional education can lead to improvements in patient safety as well as increased job satisfaction and understanding of professional roles and responsibilities. In many health care facilities staff report being committed to working collaboratively, however their practice does not always reflect their voiced ideologies. The inability to work effectively together can, in some measure, be attributed to a lack of knowledge and respect for others' professional roles, status and boundaries.

Interprofessional education for the quality use of medicines: designing authentic multimedia learning resources.

It is claimed that health care students who learn together will be better prepared for contemporary practice and more able to work collaboratively and communicate effectively. In Australia, although recognised as important for preparing nursing, pharmacy and medical students for their roles in the medication team, interprofessional education is seldom used for teaching medication safety. This is despite evidence indicating that inadequate communication between health care professionals is the primary issue in the majority of medication errors.

Examining the impact of high and medium fidelity simulation experiences on nursing students' knowledge acquisition.

Aim: This paper describes a study that measured and compared knowledge acquisition in nursing students exposed to medium or high fidelity human patient simulation manikins.

Background: In Australia and internationally the use of simulated learning environments has escalated. Simulation requires a significant investment of time and money and in a period of economic rationalisation this investment must be justified.

The development and psychometric testing of the Satisfaction with Simulation Experience Scale.

Aim: This paper reports the development and psychometric testing of the Satisfaction with Simulation Experience Scale, an instrument designed to measure and compare differences in satisfaction levels between nursing students exposed to medium and high fidelity human patient simulation manikins.

Background: Student satisfaction is important to engaged and meaningful learning and it facilitates active and purposeful participation in simulation experiences. There are suggestions that student satisfaction may have some correlation with performance.

Understanding and enhancing the learning experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse nursing students in an Australian bachelor of nursing program.

The growth in numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students entering nursing programs in Australia presents challenges for academic and clinical staff, and most importantly the students themselves. In this paper we present the findings from a pilot study designed to explore these issues and to develop strategies to address them. This study used a qualitative explorative approach to gain rich in-depth data.

The design and implementation of an Interactive Computerised Decision Support Framework (ICDSF) as a strategy to improve nursing students' clinical reasoning skills.

This paper describes the conceptual design and testing of an Interactive Computerised Decision Support Framework (ICDSF) which was constructed to enable student nurses to "think like a nurse." The ICDSF was based on a model of clinical reasoning. Teaching student nurses to reason clinically is important as poor clinical reasoning skills can lead to "failure-to rescue" of deteriorating patients.

The 'five rights' of clinical reasoning: an educational model to enhance nursing students' ability to identify and manage clinically 'at risk' patients.

Acute care settings are characterised by patients with complex health problems who are more likely to be or become seriously ill during their hospital stay. Although warning signs often precede serious adverse events there is consistent evidence that 'at risk' patients are not always identified or managed appropriately. 'Failure to rescue', with rescue being the ability to recognise deteriorating patients and to intervene appropriately, is related to poor clinical reasoning skills.

A comparison of novice and expert nurses' cue collection during clinical decision-making: verbal protocol analysis.

Background: The type of cues used during clinical decision-making contexts is not well understood. Further, there are conflicting findings in relation to how novice and expert nurses use cues.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine if there were differences between novice and expert nurses in the range and type of cues selected as well as how cues were clustered together when making clinical decisions while caring for post-operative patients in an Intensive Care Unit.

Comparing personality characteristics of juvenile sex offenders and non-sex offending delinquent peers: a preliminary investigation.

There exists a paucity of research on psychopathology among Juvenile Sex Offenders (JSOs) as measured by standardized instruments, particularly as compared to nonclinical and other clinical populations. The current investigation involved a comparison of scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent Version (MMPI-A) between a group of JSOs and non-sex offending delinquent peers. Thirty-six youth from a staff-secure residential facilitate participated, 18 JSOs and 18 non-sex offending delinquent peers.

Decision-making in clinical nursing: investigating contributing factors.

Background: This article describes the results of a study which investigated the contextual factors influencing clinical decision-making. Education and experience have been suggested by some as having a positive effect on clinical decision-making, and have been listed as being of high importance. Values, knowledge, clinical setting and stress have also been identified as being important to decision-making, with various rankings given by different researchers.