Background Experiencing the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, high vaccination coverage by a safe and effective vaccine globally would be a great achievement. Acceptance of vaccination by nursing students is an important issue as they play a decisive role as future professionals in educating patients, counselling, and guiding them to the right clinical decision. Objectives To explore the intention of nursing students to get vaccinated for SARS-CoV-2 infection and the factors acting either as motivators or as barriers towards vaccination. Design A multicenter cross-sectional design. Participants In total 2249 undergraduate nursing students participated. Methods The study was conducted in 7 universities in participating countries (Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, and Kosovo) through a web survey. Data was collected during December 2020–January 2021 in all countries. Results Forty three point 8% of students agreed to accept a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, while the acceptance was higher among Italian students. The factors for intention to get vaccinated were male gender (p = 0.008), no working experience in healthcare facilities during the pandemic (p = 0.001), vaccination for influenza in 2019 and 2020 (p < 0.001), trust in doctors (p < 0.001), governments and experts (p = 0.012), high level of knowledge (p < 0.001) and fear of COVID-19 (p < 0.001). Conclusions Understanding of factors that influence students' decision to accept COVID-19 vaccination could increase the acceptance rate contributing to a management of the pandemic.

Background: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the appropriate approach to guide healthcare personnel in their clinical practice. Despite the importance of EBP, undergraduate nursing students are not very much engaged and have a lack of knowledge and skills. Aim: The aim of this study was to gather, assess and synthesize evidence on educational interventions promoting evidence-based practice competencies in traditional undergraduate nursing students. Methods: This is a scoping review on sixteen English and non-English databases. A data extraction form was established including authors, year of publication, country, types of participant, specific objectives, study design, educational intervention, comparison if existed, and outcomes of significance. Results: The search strategy retrieved 8901 records in total. After screening for duplicates and eligibility, 20 articles were included in the qualitative synthesis. Improvement in EBP domains such as knowledge, skills, attitudes/behaviours, EBP beliefs, use, practice, level of evidence, critical thinking and future use of EBP were mentioned and assessed in different studies. Conclusions: EBP training can improve nursing students’ capacity in healthcare provision. Teaching EBP competencies along undergraduate nursing curricula should be a high priority at nursing programmes. The use of innovative approaches seems to be more effective than traditional ways. Education of EBP increases its future use and critical thinking and EBP programs improve self-efficacy and the level of evidence utilization.

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Objectives To evaluate the regenerative potential of human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) in an animal model of stress urinary incontinence (SUI). SUI, an involuntary leakage of urine, is due to physical stress involving an increase in bladder pressure and a damage of external urethral sphincter affecting muscles and nerves. Conventional therapies can only relieve the symptoms. Human DPSCs are characterized by peculiar stemness and immunomodulatory properties and might provide an alternative tool for SUI therapy. Materials and methods In vitro phase: hDPSCs were induced towards the myogenic commitment following a 24 hours pre‐conditioning with 5‐aza‐2′‐deoxycytidine (5‐Aza), then differentiation was evaluated. In vivo phase: pudendal nerve was transected in female rats to induce stress urinary incontinence; then, pre‐differentiated hDPSCs were injected in the striated urethral sphincter. Four weeks later, urethral sphincter regeneration was assayed through histological, functional and immunohistochemical analyses. Results Human DPSCs were able to commit towards myogenic lineage in vitro and, four weeks after cell injection, hDPSCs engrafted in the external urethral sphincter whose thickness was almost recovered, committed towards myogenic lineage in vivo, promoted vascularization and an appreciable recovery of the continence. Moreover, hDPSCs were detected within the nerve, suggesting their participation in repair of transected nerve. Conclusions These promising data and further investigations on immunomodulatory abilities of hDPSCs would allow to make them a potential tool for alternative therapies of SUI.

The peripheral nerve injuries, representing some of the most common types of traumatic lesions affecting the nervous system, are highly invalidating for the patients besides being a huge social burden. Although peripheral nervous system owns a higher regenerative capacity than does central nervous system, mostly depending on Schwann cells intervention in injury repair, several factors determine the extent of functional outcome after healing. Based on the injury type, different therapeutic approaches have been investigated so far. Nerve grafting and Schwann cell transplantation have represented the gold standard treatment for peripheral nerve injuries, however these approaches own limitations, such as scarce donor nerve availability and donor site morbidity. Cell based therapies might provide a suitable tool for peripheral nerve regeneration, in fact, the ability of different stem cell types to differentiate towards Schwann cells in combination with the use of different scaffolds have been widely investigated in animal models of peripheral nerve injuries in the last decade. Dental pulp is a promising cell source for regenerative medicine, because of the ease of isolation procedures, stem cell proliferation and multipotency abilities, which are due to the embryological origin from neural crest. In this article we review the literature concerning the application of tooth derived stem cell populations combined with different conduits to peripheral nerve injuries animal models, highlighting their regenerative contribution exerted through either glial differentiation and neuroprotective/neurotrophic effects on the host tissue.

Experiencing the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, high vaccination coverage by a safe and effective vaccine globally would be a great achievement. Acceptance of vaccination by healthcare students is an important issue as they have a key role as future professionals in educating patients, informing and guiding them to the right clinical decision. The aim of this study was to explore the intention of nursing students to get vaccinated for SARS-CoV-2 infection and the factors acting either as motivators or barriers towards vaccination. A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in 7 countries (Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic and Kosovo) through a web survey. In total 2249 undergraduate nursing students participated. Forty three point eight percent of students agreed to accept a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, while the acceptance was higher among Italian students. The factors for intention to get vaccinated were male gender (p=0.008), no working experience in healthcare facilities during the pandemic (p=0.001), vaccination for influenza in 2019 and 2020 (p<0.001), trust in doctors (p<0.001), governments and experts (p=0.012), high level of knowledge (p<0.001) and fear of COVID-19 (p<0.001). Understanding of factors that influence students’ decision to accept COVID-19 vaccination could increase the acceptance rate contributing to a management of the pandemic.HighlightsLess than half of the sample intended to accept COVID-19 vaccinationFactors that influenced nursing students to get vaccinated against COVID-19 were male gender, no working experience in healthcare facilities during the pandemic, vaccination for influenza in 2019 and 2020, trust in doctors, governments and experts, high level of knowledge and fear of COVID-19.

When assessing the fragility that characterizes the health of an immigrant person, a culturally competent transformation of the nurse–patient teaching-learning process is necessary. Therefore, it is considered essential to incorporate cultural competence and intercultural communication in higher nursing education.ObjectiveTo determine the content and knowledge of cultural competence and intercultural communication offered in higher education in nursing courses.DesignThe Campinha-Bacote model of cultural competence was used as the primary reference.MethodA scoping review was conducted about studies published in the period 2003 and 2020. The research was conducted between May and October 2020. More than a hundred documents (books, chapters, articles, conference proceedings) have been consulted.ResultsUndergraduate nursing courses and postgraduate education move toward promoting cultural competence and sensitivity through teaching strategies.ConclusionsTeaching projects that combine multiple competencies are more effective, including teacher training. A predominant element is a need for continuous and transversal projects. University nursing education must adapt culturally competent curricula.

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