Background: Health sciences students should have the necessary skills required to find health information from online resources.
Objective: To assess the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) and its association with internet use for health-related purposes, self-perceived health and health-related behaviour.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a sample of 528 health sciences students. Sociodemographic data, questions related to internet use for health-related purposes, self-perceived health and health-related behaviour, and the eHEALS tool were collected.
Results: The overall mean eHEALS score was 3.19 ± 0.78. Students who consider access to health resources on the internet to be very important had the highest eHEALS scores (p = 0.015). There were significant differences between the participants' perceptions of the usefulness of the internet with regard to making health decisions (p < 0.001), the accuracy of information on the internet (p = 0.001) and the eHEALS scores.
Conclusions: Health sciences students have a moderate level of eHealth literacy. Positive attitude towards internet use and positive self-perception of health are the most relevant factors associated with eHealth literacy.
Impact statement: As future healthcare providers, students need to develop eHealth literacy skills in order to find reliable health information. A positive attitude towards internet use and a positive self-perception of health are factors associated with eHealth literacy. Educators should promote training programmes that ensure students are acquiring suitable skills in eHealth literacy.
Background: A focus on community engagement is encouraged when educating nursing students on preventative care and advocacy. Students often struggle to connect theory to practice and benefit from real-world experiences.
Aim: This paper describes the effect of a student-led health project on student development.
Methods: A descriptive, correlational design was used to explore end of semester feedback from undergraduate nursing students (N = 174) completing a semester long community project. Chi-square analyses and thematic coding were performed to determine measures of association and student perceptions.
Results: Across 83 completed surveys (47.7%), self-efficacy was a key factor in project completion, development, bias awareness, and commitment to community.
Conclusions: Civic duty and professional responsibility are challenging concepts for students, thus, impacting transition to practice. Engagement in self-efficacious experiences is encouraged.
Impact statement: Community engagement influences undergraduate nursing students' development. Enhanced support of student self-efficacy may promote attainment of nursing values and improved care delivery.
Background: Self-determination theory (SDT) states that the self-care behaviors of patients with chronic illnesses are affected by an autonomy-supportive healthcare climate, satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy-supportive healthcare climate means to provide interpersonal conditions that support the person's volition, initiative, and integrity.
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the structural relationships of an autonomy-supportive healthcare climate, as well as the perception of illness consequences, autonomy, competence, and relatedness with self-care behaviors among adult outpatients with hypertension.
Design: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2020 across three hospitals outpatient clinics in South Korea.
Methods: A questionnaire package containing instruments measuring the perception of autonomy-supportive healthcare climate, autonomy, competence, relatedness, perception of illness consequence, self-care behaviors, sociodemographic data, and disease-related characteristics among the patients. The hypothetical model was derived from the SDT. Data were analyzed to test the hypothetical model and propose the final model.
Results: Complete survey data was provided by 228 participants. Overall, the findings supported the hypothesized model (Goodness-of-Fit Index = 0.90 and Comparative Fit Index = 0.99). An autonomy-supportive healthcare climate and autonomy, competence, and relatedness directly influenced the self-care behaviors of adult hypertensive patients. However, the perception of illness consequences did not have a significant direct effect on self-care behavior.
Conclusion: Improving the autonomy-supportive healthcare climate, as well as positive perception of illness consequences, autonomy, competence, and relatedness among patients positively affects self-care behavior. Thus, an authentic partnership between healthcare providers and hypertensive patients is required to enhance trust, cooperation, and adaptation, consequently improving self-care behaviors among patients.
Impact statement: Autonomy-supportive healthcare climate was both directly and indirectly associated with self-care behavior that mediates autonomy, competence, and relatedness among young and middle-aged hypertensive patients.
Nursing applicants' desire to work in nursing has been identified as an important aspect to consider in nursing student selection, but relevant instruments are missing.
To describe the development and psychometric testing of the Desire to Work in Nursing instrument.
A mixed-methods design.
The development phase included the collection and analysis of two types of data. First, three focus group interviews were organised with volunteer nursing applicants (n = 18) after the entrance exams of three universities of applied sciences (UAS) (in 2016). The interviews were analysed inductively. Second, scoping review data from four electronic databases were collected. Thirteen full-text articles (published between 2008 and 2019) were included in the review and analysed deductively based on the results of the focus group interviews. The items for the instrument were generated by synthesising the results of the focus group interviews and the scoping review. The testing phase included 841 nursing applicants who participated in the entrance exams of four UAS on 31 October 2018. The psychometric properties were analysed by examining internal consistency reliability and construct validity by principal component analysis (PCA).
The desire to work in nursing was classified into four categories: nature of the work, career opportunities, suitability for nursing and previous experiences. The internal consistency reliability of the four subscales was satisfactory. The PCA found only one factor with an eigenvalue over one, explaining 76% of the total variance.
The instrument can be considered reliable and valid. Although theoretically the instrument contains four categories, a one-factor solution should be considered in the future.
Evaluation of applicants' desire to work in nursing may provide a strategy to retain students.