Midwifery Now: Narratives about Motivations for Career Choice

Abstract: The objective of this study was to analyse nursing students’ motivation to choose the midwifery career. This is a cross-sectional study with a qualitatively driven mixed-methods approach. The settings are three higher education institutions located in Portugal. The study was conducted between September 2019 and November 2021, with the participation of 74 midwifery master’s students, through convenience sampling. The data were collected through the LimeSurvey software and were subsequently analysed in the SPSS and IRaMuTeQ software programs. The emerging thematic areas were as follows: (1) building a professional identity and (2) knowledge construction. From these two thematic areas, six classes emerged that revealed commitment to the profession. It is in Class 6 that the ancestral essence of the profession lies, revealing the meanings of competence and care perpetuation linked to gender. Midwifery is a first-line profession, and the career choice reflects a commitment to support the mother/newborn dyad in view of the inevitability of human care for the preservation of the species. Midwives with a Socratic inspiration are the model for the profession. Given the development of professional identity, it can be interesting to have an educational curriculum where human values are reinforced. A woman-centred birth environment and birth territory are elementary for midwifery education

Sexual Competence in Higher Education: Global Perspective in a Multicentric Project in the Nursing Degree

Sexuality is an important issue in the university careers of nursing students to ensure that they provide comprehensive care. It is necessary according to the recommendation of the World Health Organization. However, research reveals deficiencies and the need for further development. The aim of the study is to describe the perspective of teachers and students on the content of sexuality in nursing education. The project aims to analyze the attitudes and beliefs of the students about the sexuality of their patients. Furthermore, the experience and sexual lives of the future nurses, as well the teaching of sexuality content in the curriculum, will be analyzed. As for the educators, their level of knowledge about sexuality and vision of sexuality education in undergraduate nursing education will be analyzed. This study is an exploratory and descriptive study with a quantitative- qualitative approach in a multi-center context. The sample is composed of students and professors of nursing courses from five universities (Portugal, Spain, Italy and United States). Questionnaires and semistructured interviews will be used for data collection. The results of the study will allow the inclusion of sexual competence in the curriculum from the beginning in higher education. This article describes the research protocol

Implicit attitudes of nursing faculty toward individuals with disabilities

Students with visible disabilities have been known to be denied admission to nursing education programs on the basis of the disability and treated poorly once admitted. While little is known about the number of individuals affected by these discriminatory behaviors, the American Nurses Association provides clear statements against discrimination in the profession of nursing and in nursing education. Building on the extant knowledge that attitudes affect behavior, many researchers have explored the explicitly stated attitudes of nurse educators toward individuals with disabilities. However, explicit attitudes are subject to social desirability and may not be the best measure of true attitudes. Implicit attitudes, which are unconscious or unspoken, are a better measure of attitude and were measured through the use of the Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT) through Project Implicit. This study used a mixed- methods, cross-sectional research design to explore nurse educators' implicit attitudes toward individuals with visible disabilities. A total of 132 nurse educators who teach primarily in baccalaureate programs completed the DA-IAT, a demographic survey, and an open-ended survey. The mean DA-IAT score for the sample was 0.76(SD 0.46) which indicates that this sample of nurse educators holds strong preference for able-bodied individuals. The demographic questions revealed that one variable, more than monthly contact with individuals with disabilities, was a statistically significant finding of difference of implicit attitudes toward disabled individuals, t (128) = -2.184, p=.029. The open-ended questions were completed by 118 participants and evaluated through content analysis. Four main areas of focus were identified: the admissions process, admission criteria, the DA-IAT test, and responses to DA-IAT test results. Participants' narrative comments, along with participants' mean DA-IAT score, represent a unique resource and a step toward a more candid and clear view of issues faced by disabled applicants, students, and faculty in nursing education. This more challenging and more truthful picture of the nursing education is a necessary foundation for the discussions of policies and other work that is required to create a genuinely inclusive environment

A Feasibility and Efficacy Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Exercise Programs in Severe AECOPD Patients with Resting Hypoxemia

Resting hypoxemia is the most severe stage of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Due to their impairments during the exacerbation, these patients are limited to traditional exercise rehabilitation and are excluded from the majority of the studies. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and the efficacy of two exercise programs in Acute Exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD) patients with resting hypoxemia. In this randomized clinical trial, patients hospitalized due to an acute exacerbation of COPD with hypoxemia at rest were included. Patients were randomly assigned into three groups. A Control Group (pharmacological treatment), a Global Exercise Group (GEG), and a Functional Electrostimulation Group (FEG). Patients were treated during the hospitalization period. The main outcomes were lower limb strength (assessed by a dynamometer), balance (assessed by the one leg standing balance test), health related quality of life (assessed by the EQ-5D), adverse events and adherence. At the end of the intervention, there were significant differences in all the variables in favour of the experimental groups (p < 0.05). We concluded that conducting an exercise program is feasible and improves lower limb strength, balance, and health related quality of life in AECOPD patients with resting hypoxemia.FPU grant (FPU: 17/00408) of the Spanish Ministry of Education (Spain)FPU (“Formación Profesorado Universitario”) grant (FPU: 19/02609) of the Spanish Ministry of EducationFPU (“Formación Profesorado Universitario”) grant (FPU: 16/01531) of the Spanish Ministry of Educatio

Adaptation and Validation of the Sexuality Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for the Italian Context

Background: Nurses dealing with a patient&rsquo;s sexuality must start from an awareness of their own experience, specific attitudes, and possible limits. What emerges from the literature is a conservative tendency in nurses, which underlines the difficulty in this awareness, but even a difficulty in improving the necessary knowledge/skills. It is, therefore, essential to create tools that can raise awareness of these limits. Objective: the present study aims to explore the psychometric properties of the Attitudes and Beliefs about Sexuality Scale, adapted and validated for the Italian context. Method: This is an instrumental, cross-sectional piece of research, whose SABS validation process applies the steps of Beaton and Valmi. The convenience sample collected data from 223 participants in the first approach. This was followed by a retest involving 44 students randomly selected from those who responded in the first phase. Ethical principles were respected. Results: The SABS questionnaire demonstrated good test-retest reliability, good internal consistency, and adequate construct validity. Conclusions: The Italian version of the SABS is valid and reliable for use with nursing students. This is the fourth language in which the SABS is available for research

A Multicentric Pilot Study of Student Nurse Attitudes and Beliefs toward Sexual Healthcare

Nurse educators are tasked with the education of students to become providers of holistic care, and part of that care includes sexuality. Students carry attitudes and beliefs that influence their behavior; therefore, students who carry negative attitudes about sexual healthcare are less likely to provide that care. This is an international, multicenter study of nursing students’ attitudes and beliefs about the provision of sexual healthcare. The Sexuality Attitudes and Beliefs Survey, which measures attitudes toward the provision of sexual healthcare and has a range of scores from 12 to 72, was given to 129 students across Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States and revealed negative attitudes about sexuality, with a mean SABS score of 39.95. Higher scores on the SABS reveal more negative attitudes and reduced likelihood of provision of sexual healthcare. Statistically significant differences were found when comparing queer and heterosexual students (41.69 vs. 38.06), and students in their final year of school held more negative attitudes toward the provision of sexual healthcare (41.4 vs. 39.5 and 39.2). This study shows that nurse educators continue to need to focus on the attitudes student nurses carry about sexuality. There is a critical shortage of education strategies to meet the needs of student nurses so that they will be comfortable and confident in providing sexual healthcare