Lisbeth Fagerström, Professor in Caring Science, Åbo Akademi University, Faculty of education and welfare studies
The doctoral course “The substance and theory development of nursing/caring” was the first part of the activity 2.1.1 Capacity building of nursing faculty on nursing science. The main idea of the training course was to train upcoming nursing science teachers, i.e. both nurses studying on Master and/or PhD level, and actual teachers in medical (doctor) science at medical universities to raise their competences in nursing science and further development of knowledge base of nursing science in Kazakhstan.
The aim of the course was to learn to understand and critically evaluate the modern nursing and caring science theories, have an ability to teach theories to nursing science students and know how to apply current nursing science theories into different clinical fields.
In January 2021 the course planning started in meetings with involved partners, and several meetings were arranged during the spring. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the course had to be arranged as an online course (zoom). The course content, literature and material, instructions for preparatory work and assignments, assessment criteria, as well as event program were planned and developed by the teachers at ÅAU, JAMK and LSMU together. The leader of the course was Professor Lisbeth Fagerström from ÅAU. Several teachers and lecturers from ÅAU, JAMK, KMU and LSMU contributed with their expertise in both planning and realizing of the course, and in addition the co-leader Assem Doskeldinova from AMU gave valuable support during the entire process.
A course site in Moodle at ÅAU was constructed, where all important information about course including course material, articles, eBooks etc. was accessible to the course participants and teachers. ÅAU user accounts were made for the course participants, to give them access to the Moodle platform as well as to ÅAU library. The participants received extensive support in practical issues regarding user account and registration from both the IT department and the health science department at ÅAU.
After active marketing and several reminders, 31 participants were registered to the course. After some cancellations, 26 persons participated in the first seminars that were held on June 21-23. Before the course started, the participants had to some mandatory reading and preparatory work in advance of this online course. The goal of the seminars was to deepen the understanding of the development of nursing and caring theories from an international perspective, and how nursing/caring theories have been used nursing practice, education and leadership on an international level, and finally how to evaluate the trustworthiness of nursing/caring theories. The seminar started with an introduction about the history of nursing and caring science and central paradigm concepts, and after that some examples of grand, middle and practical oriented theories and models were introduced, such as the theories of Eriksson, Watson, Kolcaba, Orem and Benner. During the second day, implementation of theories were highlighted by presentations of research projects, where nursing/caring theories had been implemented in different fields of nursing. The lecture about the pedagogy of teaching nursing/caring theories was useful and appreciated by the participants. The third main topic of the theoretical introduction was critical evaluation of nursing/caring theories. Two doctoral students presented shortly how they had applied nursing/caring theories in their doctoral studies. In the evaluation of the course, the participants mentioned that the practical examples how nursing/caring theories can be used in research was especially fruitful for them. Every day the participants were divided into work groups and discussed the actual topics and had to relate the topics to own research.
Between part 1 and part 2 of the course, the participants were expected to submit a written essay (course assignment) about a caring or nursing theory. The second part of the course was arranged 20-21. September. During these seminar days, the participants presented the main points of their written essays and took part in discussions regarding the other participants’ presentations. An additional seminar for presentations was organized on 22. October. According to the participants’ evaluation, their knowledge of the substance and theory development of nursing and caring increased during the course. The participants expressed that they appreciated the theoretical part of the course, and that they had increased the understanding and knowledge of the theories and also got a deeper understanding of the importance of the theories. They expressed their intention to use nursing/caring theories in teaching. They viewed the theoretical framework of nursing/caring science as the foundation of nursing and stressed to continuously use nursing/caring theories in nursing practice and the importance of applying theoretical frameworks of nursing when doing research.
Keywords: nursing science, caring science, nursing theory, implementation, evaluation.
References:
Professor Lisbeth Fagerström is professor in caring science and rector at Åbo Akademi University in Vaasa, Finland and affiliated professor in Nursing science at University of Southeast-Norway. Her main research areas are advanced practice nursing, nurse staffing, nursing intensity, gerontological nursing, and health promotion (126 scientific articles (referee); 13 book chapters; 1 book editor; 1 book about APN (Springer, 2021), over 150 abstracts). She has extensive experience of nursing education on all levels and of leadership in clinical health care with special focus on leading changes in healthcare, health education and research.
Coordinators
Jūratė Macijauskienė, project coordinator
Živilė Kepežinskienė, project manager
Editorial team
Dinara Kozhakhmetova, responsible for WP4 Dissemination
Baituganova Aizhan, responsible for WP4 Dissemination