Search Results (100)

Background/Objectives: Health education plays a vital role in training health professionals and caregivers, supporting both prevention and the promotion of self-care. In this context, technology serves as a valuable ally by enabling continuous and flexible learning. Among the various domains of health education, nutrition stands out as a key element in the management of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), helping to prevent malnutrition and enhance patient well-being. Accordingly, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching and learning processes within a learning pathway focused on food and nutrition in the context of ALS. Methods: This study adopted a longitudinal, quantitative design. The learning pathway, titled “Food and Nutrition in ALS,” consisted of four self-paced and self-instructional Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), offered through the Virtual Learning Environment of the Brazilian Health System (AVASUS). Participants included health professionals, caregivers, and patients from all five regions of Brazil. Participants had the autonomy to complete the courses in any order, with no prerequisites for enrollment. Results: Out of 14,263 participants enrolled nationwide, 182 were included in this study after signing the Informed Consent Form. Of these, 142 (78%) completed at least one course and participated in the educational intervention. A significant increase in knowledge was observed, with mean pre-test scores rising from 7.3 (SD = 1.8) to 9.6 (SD = 0.9) on the post-test across all courses (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The self-instructional, technology-mediated continuing education model proved effective in improving participants’ knowledge about nutrition in ALS. Future studies should explore knowledge retention, behavior change, and the impact of such interventions on clinical outcomes, especially in multidisciplinary care settings. Full article

Background/Objective: The use of artificial intelligence to assist in medical applications is an emerging area of investigation and discussion. The researchers studied whether there was a difference between homeopathy guidance provided by artificial intelligence (AI) (automated) and live professional practitioners (live) for acute illnesses. Additionally, the study explored the practical challenges associated with validating AI tools used for homeopathy and sought to generate insights on the potential value and limitations of these tools in the management of acute health complaints. Method: Randomly selected cases at a homeopathy teaching clinic (n = 100) were entered into a commercially available homeopathic remedy finder to investigate the consistency between automated and live recommendations. Client symptoms, medical disclaimers, remedies, and posology were compared. The findings of this study show that the purpose-built homeopathic remedy finder is not a one-to-one replacement for a live practitioner. Result: In the 100 cases compared, the automated online remedy finder provided between 1 and 20 prioritized remedy recommendations for each complaint, leaving the user to make the final remedy decision based on how well their characteristic symptoms were covered by each potential remedy. The live practitioner-recommended remedy was included somewhere among the auto-mated results in 59% of the cases, appeared in the top three results in 37% of the cases, and was a top remedy match in 17% of the cases. There was no guidance for managing remedy responses found in live clinical settings. Conclusion: This study also highlights the challenge and importance of validating AI remedy recommendations against real cases. The automated remedy finder used covered 74 acute complaints. The live cases from the teaching clinic included 22 of the 74 complaints. Full article

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly restricted clinical training for midwifery students, highlighting the need for alternative teaching methods. With the disruption of traditional face-to-face education, online simulation-based training has emerged as an effective alternative for developing essential clinical skills. The acquisition of hands-on skills has a direct impact on students’ self-confidence and clinical performance. Interactive online simulations support the learning process by enhancing both theoretical knowledge and practical competencies. This study aims to evaluate the impact of online simple simulation-based episiotomy repair training on students whose clinical practice was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A mixed-method approach was used, considering the outcomes from 61 midwifery students. Data were collected via observational questionnaires, which provide an online learning readiness scale and scales for student satisfaction and self-confidence. The analysis included descriptive statistics, McNemar’s, binary logistic regression, and the Mann–Whitney U test. Results: Students who trusted themselves in both opening and repairing an episiotomy after training had more readiness for online learning (t(43) = 2.73, p = 0.009; t(43) = 2.40, p = 0.02). Students with better training performance are more likely to obtain higher scores on the final exam of the Clinical Practice module (rho = 0.33, p = 0.01). Additionally, their performance was a positive and significant predictor of achieving a full mark (b = 0.11, s.e. = 0.05, p = 0.01). Conclusions: Interactive online simulation training improved midwifery students’ hand skills and self-confidence in clinical practice. Such methods should be promoted in circumstances like COVID-19. Full article

Background: Traditionally, community-based education (CBE) programmes have been utilised for teaching medical students clinical and interpersonal skills through placement in underserved environments. This pilot cohort study tested an extended model of CBE by infusing patient education into student-conducted consultations with the dual objectives of stimulating improved learning for the students and improved health literacy for the patients. Methods: The intervention involved 38 final-year medical students and 85 adult patients and from underprivileged communities in North West London. The students first undertook online preparatory workshops on health literacy, communication skills, and cultural competence. Subsequently, they imparted 20–30 min educational sessions on chronic disease management and preventive care to the patients on their clinical placements. The quantitative measurement used pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, and the qualitative measurement was based on reflective diaries and patient feedback. Paired t-tests were used for statistical comparisons, while a thematic analysis was used for textual answers. Results: Student confidence in breaking down medical jargon improved from 2.8 ± 0.7 to 4.4 ± 0.5 (p < 0.01), and confidence in making use of visual aids improved from 2.5 ± 0.8 to 4.2 ± 0.6 (p < 0.01). Understanding among the patients of their health conditions improved from 27% to 74% (p < 0.001), and self-confidence in their ability to manage their health improved from 31% to 79% (p < 0.001). The qualitative feedback noted improved empathy, cultural sensitivity, and a positive effect on patient empowerment through tailored education. Conclusions: This CBE intervention had two benefits: improving teaching and communication skills in students and greatly enhancing health literacy in underserved patients. The integration of structured education into usual care encounters holds the promise of a scalable, sustainable method for addressing health disparities. Longer longitudinal studies are necessary to assess its long-term success and incorporation into medical education. Full article

Background: This study aimed to investigate and analyze the remote teaching methods implemented in nursing education and clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of developing post-pandemic educational strategies. Methods: A structured questionnaire was administered to 92 full-time nursing professors nationwide, who were responsible for clinical courses in adult nursing. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics via SPSS. Results: The majority (96.7%) of the participants implemented remote clinical practice during COVID-19. The primary teaching methods included virtual simulation programs (76.1%) and online nursing skills programs (75%). The clinical scenarios were primarily instructor-developed (63%) or drawn from virtual simulation cases (54.3%). Most professors (69.6%) modified their evaluation methods, and 85.9% reported changes in their assignment structures compared to their pre-pandemic practice. Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into the effective remote clinical practice in nursing education, identifying specific programs and implementation considerations suitable for post-pandemic educational environments. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on health sciences education, and impacted clinical training, teaching methodologies, and institutional practices. Within the higher education literature during the height of the pandemic, several research studies focused on the impact of the pandemic on the students, but not on health sciences educators. Our study used thematic analysis to analyze the higher education literature from the CHELD v2 database to learn about the perspectives of health sciences educators. Out of 738 articles in the CHELD v2 database, we identified 14 articles that were focused on the perspectives of health sciences educators. The resulting thematic categories related to faculty development, student assessment, clinical education techniques, and insights into the pivot to online teaching. While our study contributes to the health sciences education literature by identifying themes from global health sciences educators’ perspectives, this study also paves the way to better understand institutional and student perspectives in a more inclusive way for the health sciences. Full article

Background: Evidence-based practice must be promoted in nursing education to provide quality care. For this, teaching practices that promote its development must be considered. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore a learning experience centered on evidence-based practice through cooperative learning in an online discussion forum with nursing students. Methods: We employed a descriptive qualitative study with the participation of 137 nursing students. A teaching intervention based on cooperative teamwork through an online forum is proposed. The students, through a question, must manage information to provide a reasoned answer. The interactions in the forums were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results: Two themes and eight categories emerged: Critical Analysis of the Literature (Computer Literacy, Reliability of the data sources, Level of evidence according to the article design, and Relevance of the research) and Clinical Practice (Patient’s perspective, Professional experience, Quality of care, and Usefulness of EBP). Conclusions: The use of interactive teaching methodologies (cooperative learning and online discussion forums) facilitates the construction of knowledge applied to clinical practice. Students perceive EBP as necessary and useful for optimal care management, and the forums allow for the development of key competencies, such as autonomous learning, teamwork, and critical thinking. Full article

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a brain disorder causing issues among many young children. For children suffering from ASD, their learning ability is typically slower when compared to normal children. Therefore, many technologies aiming to teach ASD children with optimized learning approaches have emerged. With this motivation, this study presents a smart autism spectrum disorder learning system based on remote edge healthcare clinics and the Internet of Medical Things, the objective of which is to offer an online education and healthcare environment for autistic children. Concave and convex optimization constraints, such as accuracy, learning score, total processing time with deadline, and resource failure, are considered in the proposed system, with a focus on different autism education learning applications (e.g., speaking, reading, writing, and listening), while respecting the system’s quality of service (QoS) requirements. All of the autism applications are executed on smartwatches, mobile devices, and edge healthcare nodes during their training and analysis in the system. This study presents the smartwatch autism spectrum data learning scheme (SM-ASDS), which consists of different offloading approaches, training analyses, and schemes. The SM-ASDS algorithm methodology includes partitioning offloading and deep convolutional neural network (DCNN)- and adaptive long short-term memory (ALSTM)-based schemes, which are used to train autism-related data on different nodes. The simulation results show that SM-ASDS improved the learning score by 30%, accuracy by 98%, and minimized the total processing time by 33%, when compared to baseline methods. Overall, this study presents an education learning system based on smartwatches for autistic patients, which facilitates educational training for autistic patients based on the use of artificial intelligence techniques. Full article

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the opinions of biomedical students from Russia and Central Serbia about learning methods in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This is a comparative questionnaire study that used the validated questionnaire tool eMedQ, conducted via the online platform Anketolog.ru from February to May 2022 at Sechenov University and the University of Kragujevac in the same period. At Sechenov University, 694 students took part in the survey, while at the University of Kragujevac, the total number of participants was 209. The eMedQ questionnaire, in Russian and Serbian, consists of 45 closed-ended questions with 7 domains: demographic characteristics, experience with online teaching, education process (teaching organization), aspects of mental functioning, clinical skills, technical aspects, and quality of life. Results: During the COVID-19 lockdown, in Serbian and Russian biomedical faculties, we observed the high flexibility of Russian students with greater experience when it comes to online education before the pandemic compared to students from Serbia. Also, the Russian students declared that they were strongly motivated to achieve clinical skills and to learn, while a larger number of Serbian students reported disrupted mental functioning and learning problems. Conclusions: At the time of isolation, at Serbian and Russian biomedical faculties, we noticed the higher flexibility of Russian students with more experience than students from Serbia. Also, the Russian students declared that they were strongly motivated both to acquire clinical skills and to learn, while a larger number of Serbian students reported reduced mental functioning and learning problems. Full article

Background: Developed countries report specific issues regarding the declining midwifery workforce, and their shortage could have serious consequences for women’s sexual and reproductive health. The aim was to understand the perception of autonomy among midwives working in Spain, as well as factors related to their intention to leave the profession and their work environment. Method: A descriptive and cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire. Population: midwives working in Spain in any field (clinical, research, teaching, or management). Results: A sample of 1060 midwives was obtained. Of these, 53.7% (n = 569) feel autonomous in their work, 92.4% (n = 978) perceive that their profession frequently suffers from external interference, 46.6% (n = 494) have experienced sexist behaviors at work, and 53% (n = 561) have considered leaving the profession in the last year. Midwives with less than 10 years of experience (57.7%), those aged 31–45 years (59.8%), those with temporary contracts (38.3%), and those working in hospital care (71.9%) show a higher rate of considering leaving the profession (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Considering the current midwifery workforce crisis in Spain, it seems urgent to improve the working conditions of midwives to ensure the continuity and quality of women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare. Full article

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the antibiotic-prescribing attitudes of dental students during the management of endodontic infections. Materials and methods: This study was conducted in the five faculties of dental medicine in Morocco. A self-administered questionnaire was used and completed online. This questionnaire has three parts: the first includes the socio-demographic data, the second is related to the types of antibiotics prescribed, and the final addresses clinical scenarios in which antibiotics are prescribed. Data were analyzed with Jamovi, and X₂ and ANOVA tests were performed. Results: Three hundred and sixty-five students participated in this study. The average duration of antibiotic therapy was 5.87 ± 1.45. Of all the students, 83.8% prescribe amoxicillin first. For patients with penicillin allergy, clindamycin was the most prescribed, amounting to 53.9%. Antibiotics are prescribed for all pulp and periapical pathologies. For acute pulpitis and acute apical periodontitis, a statistically significant difference between the different faculties was noted (p = 0.03). Regarding apical abscesses, antibiotic prescription was more frequent at the public faculty of Casablanca, corresponding to 92.8%. (p = 0.02). Conclusion: It appears from this study that there is a need for faculties to develop innovative teaching models to improve students’ level of knowledge on antibiotics and their indications in endodontics. Full article

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive program designed to reduce nursing students’ perceived stress and improve self-efficacy and readiness to professionally address incivility during clinical practice. Background: Incivility in clinical settings adversely impacts learners, educators, institutions, and healthcare systems, undermining safety and the teaching–learning process. Despite its increasing global prevalence, effective interventions remain largely unexplored. Methods: Our mixed-methods study, conducted from March to April 2024, involved senior baccalaureate pre-licensure nursing students (N = 35) from a California State University. The three-week, one-hour-per-week, interactive clinical incivility management program was developed through an extensive literature review. Pre- and post-intervention differences were assessed using a 10 min self-administered online survey that included the Uncivil Behavior in Clinical Nursing Education (UBCNE; 12 items), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; 10 items), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE; 10 items), and a sample characteristics questionnaire (11 items). A one-hour face-to-face focus group (n = 11) then provided qualitative data on personal experiences of clinical incivility. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS version 27, while qualitative data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s method. Results: Clinical incivility prevalence was 71.4% (n = 25 out of 35). No statistically significant differences were found in UBCNE, PSS, and GSE scores between pre- and post-intervention. However, professional responses to clinical incivility significantly improved after the intervention (t = −12.907, p < 0.001). Four themes emerged from the qualitative data: (a) uncivil behaviors or language from nurses, (b) emotional discouragement and low self-confidence, (c) resource and personnel shortages at clinical sites for education, and (d) the necessity for interventions to manage clinical incivility. Conclusions: Nursing schools and clinical agencies should collaborate to establish monitoring systems, enhance communication, and implement evidence-based policies and interactive interventions to prevent and manage clinical incivility experienced by nursing students from clinical sites. Full article

Background: Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) involves international online activities that allow the support of transversal competencies in diverse and multicultural environments without moving from home. This paper presents the learning experiences and satisfaction of undergraduate nursing students at the University of Girona (Spain) from a COIL activity involving clinical simulation in collaboration with the University of Coventry (United Kingdom). Methods: Qualitative study of content analysis. Twelve students from each of the two universities participated in the data collection process using reflective diaries. Results: The data analysis highlighted five topics related to the COIL activity involving clinical simulation: (a) initial attitudes towards the COIL activity; (b) main learning through the COIL activity; (c) positive aspects of the COIL activity; (d) weaknesses of the COIL activity and proposals for improvement; and (e) overall evaluation of the COIL activity. Conclusions: The main learning outcomes referred to by students were the relationships between transversal competencies and the skills for life, language skills, cultural skills, and more specific skills related to clinical standards. The students were most satisfied with the teaching activities and specified positive aspects and weaknesses that will add value to future versions of the activities. Full article

Given the unemployment wave caused by COVID-19, the Israeli Ministry of Education and other organizations initiated a unique alternative short-term retraining program to offer unemployed college and university graduates the opportunity to earn teaching certificates. This study aimed to examine the alternative short-term program from the coordinators’ perspectives. We assess the personal and organizational impact of the program and its contribution to teacher-education initiatives. The present study had two main goals: to learn about the structure of the program and its implementation from the professional and personal points of view of the program’s coordinators as they experienced it and to examine the contribution of the new short-term program to the participants—the teacher trainees—and the Israeli education system in general. Analyzing semi-structured interviews with program coordinators revealed insights regarding the program’s various phases in five categories: recruitment of the coordinator; establishing the program; clinical experience; the students of the program; and future initiatives for teacher education. Although the effectiveness of the online format for practical clinical training was questioned, the conclusion suggests that this alternative short-term teacher-education program may have broader relevance in routine times. Full article

Collaborative learning (CL) is the instructional use of small groups in such a way that students work together to maximize their own and others’ learning. In this study, the aim was to implement online collaborative learning (OCL) using the Microsoft Teams (MT) platform and to analyze the students’ preferences regarding presential or online learning. Material and Methods: A descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study was conducted with 79 students from the Degree in Dentistry. Four groups were created with MT and clinical cases or problems were uploaded for online discussion with each group. Additionally, as part of the course program, the students were divided into the same groups for to carry out Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in person. Afterwards, students completed a project assessment and satisfaction survey. Results: The survey revealed that the students found participation in this project to be useful or very useful. Their experiences with MT were rated as positive or very positive. However, a significant portion of the students (42.6%) preferred conventional face-to-face (FF) problem-solving, while 27.9% preferred using online tools. Based on the execution of this project and the open feedback on the use of MT, we have outlined a series of recommendations to enhance the use of this platform. Conclusions: MT is a highly useful platform for online teaching, offering multiple tools to promote learning in a virtual and asynchronous manner. However, when comparing CL through PBL conducted FF versus online, students still prefer in-person teaching to virtual methods. Full article