The ecological competence of health care is formed and developed in the process of transformative teaching and learning through developing systemic thinking, critical thinking, reflection and complementing health care knowledge with ecological knowledge. It expands the essence of the professional competence into a systemic view and from a holistic perspective. Skills and abilities developed as a result of acquiring ecological knowledge and adopting the ecological approach in health care practice provide the most complete and profound way to conceptualize and implement the holistic health care model and make it a common practice.

Transformative education in nursing is a manifestation of the complementarity of nursing and the ecology of education with an aim to base learning and learning outcomes -knowledge, skills and competences in the ecological paradigm. The author of the research has approbated the principles of the ecology of education in the curricula and study courses of several medical colleges, as well as in the curricula of informal education. A student survey was performed to clarify how participants of different nursing study programs understand the concept of ecology and transformative education, and its connection with education and health care.

In the 21st century, numerous complex challenges in education and health care have come to the fore, among them: 1) how to implement the ecological approach in the education process and health care practice; 2) how to implement study programmes in line with the education trends for sustainable development and the process of formation and development of the ecological competence.The results of this research refer only to the content analysis of the essays written by the first and second year students of the programs in Nursing and Medicine on completing the study course The Ecological Approach in Patient Care. To increase the credibility and validity of the obtained results of the content analysis, the triangulation method has been applied to include quantitative and qualitative data. The research has looked into the concept of ecology, its application and importance in developing the ecological consciousness of students during their transformation from I-Ego to I-Eco in the process of developing their ecological competence (SalÓte, 1998).Keywords: sustainability/sustainable development in health care, education for sustainable development, ecological approach, ecology of human development, deep ecology and ecosophy.

Nurses' professional competence consists of several interrelated components, which during interacting of critical thinking, reflection and experience, characterizes the essence of the profession of nurses. Critical thinking applies not only to the educational process, it is an expression the nurses’ responsible and professional action during the health care process. Critical thinking and reflection make up of various specific competence component interactions of nurses professional healthcare process. The professional competence of the nurse grows and develops in interaction of social, educational and health care environment, learning process, and is realized in the context of the knowledge and experience. It is constantly exposed to the transformation from the potential state to the actual, developing, increasing its potential and readiness in a systemic perspective.The study aims to determine the self-assessment level of the nurses' professional competence components to create a positive environment for health care and improve health care quality.It is important for nurses to engage in scientific research work, thus developing evidence-based health-care practices. Research task in nursing and health care is the identification and development of knowledge, promoting the use of the theory of nursing in practice through critical and systematic way of thinking and implementing the theory based health care. The study utilized: 1) nurses' professional competence component self-assessment scale (Nurse Competence Scale); 2) The research process implementation barrier assessment scale (Barrier scale).

<p><em>Needs of parents during hospitalization of a child, during the health care process, are connected with the interaction of multilevel environment in the hospital setting. Created expert evaluation questionnaire and performed research serve as a basis for creation of the activity research questionnaire for parents of children and nurses employed in the health care field using acquired data. To heighten validity of the obtained data during each cycle of data analysis triangulated data acquisition methods were used</em><em>. During research of the needs of parents during hospitalization of their child following methods of triangulation were used</em><em>: data triangulation – quantitative and qualitative data obtained during research; sources: child</em><em>’</em><em>s parents and nurses</em><em>; triangulation of researchers</em><em> – author of the dissertation, scientific head of the dissertation, experts; triangulation of theories – sustainability/sustainable development, ecology of human development, </em><em>holistic health care model, system model; triangulation of </em><em>methods</em><em> – questionnaires, expert evaluations, analysis of qualitative data and thematic qualitative analysis</em><em>. During research the strategy of triangulation contains use of several sources of information</em><em>. Relatively autonomous research methods give purposeful answers to the research questions on needs of parents during hospitalization of a child. Data obtained during activity research indicate ability of the parents and health care teams to satisfy their needs. </em></p>

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