Emotional Intelligence, recognizing and handling ones' own and others' emotions is beginning to figure in nursing literature, with potential to enhance care, teamwork and wellbeing. District nursing is laden with complex and emotional issues yet little research investigates the value of emotional intelligence in district nursing specifically. This qualitative study adopts interpretative phenomenological analysis with five district nurses, (of different grades), to illuminate perceptions and experiences of emotional intelligence. Findings show district nurses perceive emotional intelligence to be an essential part of their role, regardless of grade or position. Despite being a relatively new concept to nurses, each participant perceived relevant attributes as essential to quality care in the home, especially in relation to palliative care. Themes identified include: self awareness, control, assessment, experience, palliative care and leadership. Only some of these are consistent with existing literature and illustrate a need to investigate this interesting area further.
As nurse lecturers we investigated practice development and action learning approaches aimed at enabling postregistration bachelor's- and master's-level nursing students (Community Health Studies, Nursing in the Home) to advance practice in the context of policy and professional developments. A patchwork text was used to assess summatively what students achieved (practice change/development) and how this was informed critically, via an extended epistemology. First-person inquiry supplemented by cooperative inquiry postcourse completion (including reflective discussions with 16 students and 16 practice mentors) were used to assist coresearcher constructions of meaning. A relational, tripartite approach to learning and assessment (students', teachers', and practice mentors' collective contributions) depends on continuing reflective attention. Action learning enhances interrelation of experience with dialectic thinking. The patchwork text functions to promote creative writing, evaluative thinking, and praxis development. Role modeling by all, being genuine and not just "talking" genuine, is challenging yet crucial if people are to function as mutual resources for learning.
This paper is a description of a module to prepare community studies students for reflective practice skills, and which provides a model of collaboration between service and educational practitioners. Details are given of the taught, experiential and organisational elements of the programme and the practice issues examined are also identified. Group process issues indicate that formal reflective practice may create uncertainty and anxiety due to the need to share practice thinking and actions. Strategies and interventions are identified to contain such inevitable reactions, which centre upon informed consent, consideration of feelings and the establishment of the conditions necessary for trust. Student evaluations of the module indicate both scepticism about, and hope for, formal reflection upon practice. The issues arising from this module have relevance to all practitioners engaged in reflective practice and clinical supervision.
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