Search Results (6)

Background: Family caregivers are a vital yet often under-recognized part of the healthcare system. They provide essential emotional, physical, and logistical support to individuals with illness, disability, or frailty, and their contributions improve continuity of care and reduce system strain. However, many healthcare and social service providers are not equipped to meaningfully engage caregivers as partners. In Alberta, stakeholders validated the Caregiver-Centered Care Competency Framework and identified the need for a three-tiered education model—Foundational, Advanced, and Champion—to help providers recognize, include, and support family caregivers across care settings. This paper focuses on the development and early evaluation of the Advanced Caregiver-Centered Care Education modules, designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of providers with more experience working with family caregivers. The modules emphasize how partnering with caregivers benefits not only the person receiving care but also improves provider effectiveness and supports better system outcomes. Methods: The modules were co-designed with a 154-member interdisciplinary team and grounded in the competency framework. Evaluation used the first three levels of the Kirkpatrick–Barr health workforce education model. We analyzed pre- and post-surveys from the first 50 learners in each module using paired t-tests and examined qualitative feedback and SMART goals through inductive content analysis. Results: Learners reported a high level of satisfaction with the education delivery and the knowledge and skill acquisition. Statistically significant improvements were observed in 53 of 54 pre-post items. SMART goals reflected intended practice changes across all six competency domains, indicating learners saw value in engaging caregivers as partners. Conclusions: The Advanced Caregiver-Centered Care education improved providers’ confidence, knowledge, and skills to work in partnership with family caregivers. Future research will explore whether these improvements translate into real-world practice changes and better caregiver experiences in care planning, communication, and navigation. Full article

Background/Objectives: Patient safety is a critical component of healthcare quality, yet there remains a significant gap in understanding how patient safety knowledge progresses among nursing students throughout their educational journey. This scoping review aims to map and analyze the existing literature on the development of patient safety knowledge in undergraduate nursing education. Methods: This study will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews and adhere to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—Scoping Reviews) guidelines. A comprehensive search strategy will be employed across multiple databases, including CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), PubMed, Embase, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. The review will include studies published from 2019 to 2024 in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Two independent reviewers will conduct study selection and data extraction. The data will be synthesized narratively, with quantitative data summarized using descriptive statistics and qualitative data analyzed thematically. Results: The review is expected to identify key patterns in the progression of patient safety knowledge among nursing students, including critical periods for knowledge acquisition, challenges in translating theoretical knowledge into practice, and effective educational strategies. The findings will be presented in both tabular and narrative forms, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state of patient safety education in nursing programs. Conclusions: The anticipated outcomes of this review have significant implications for nursing education, healthcare policy, and clinical practice. For educators, the findings will inform curriculum development and the design of targeted interventions to enhance patient safety competencies. From a policy perspective, the results could support the standardization of patient safety education across nursing programs. In clinical practice, the study may emphasize the importance of continuous professional development in patient safety. This scoping review aims to fill a critical gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of how patient safety knowledge progresses among nursing students. The findings are expected to contribute significantly to the advancement of nursing education and patient safety, ultimately fostering a culture of safety that benefits both healthcare providers and recipients. Full article

Perspectives of the core competencies of nurses are varied among postgraduate-year nurses, which makes it challenging to establish training programs and develop evaluation instruments. Particularly critical for nurses is the ongoing acquisition of competencies throughout life. Sometimes this acquisition is funded by the healthcare system, but the key question is how the system leverages this acquisition and ultimately how it translates into patient care. This study seeks to explore nurses’ key competencies acquired through continuing education from the perspective of two groups of postgraduate nurses with different levels of experience and with different objectives to be assessed. An NGT procedure was applied to the group discussion. The participants were recruited according to basic factors such as the number of years of professional experience, their level of education, and their preferred professional status. Thus, seventeen professionals participated in the study, representing two public hospitals in the city. Following the NGT procedure, the competencies identified from the thematic analysis were scored and ranked to achieve a consensus. Eight core issues were derived in the novel group concerning transferring the competencies to patient care quality: holism, care work, organizational barriers, specialization, no transfer, confidence, knowledge, and instrumental tools. Four core issues were derived when asked about the relationship between the resources invested and the organizational and professional development of the nursing staff: professional development, positive learning, negative learning, and recognition. In the more experienced group, seven issues were derived from the first issue raised: continuous learning, quality, confidence, holism, safe care, autonomy, and technical issues. Additionally, six issues arose from the second question: satisfaction, autonomy, creativity, productivity, professional development, and recognition. In conclusion, the perceptions of the two selected groups are negative when it comes to assessing the extent to which the competencies acquired in lifelong learning are transferred to the patient and the system evaluates and recognizes these competencies for improvement. Full article

In this era of globalisation, translation technologies have become more popular in daily communication, the education sector, and the translation industry. It is observed that there is a prevalent use of machine translation (MT) among translation learners. The proper use versus abuse of MT can be a critical issue regarding its role in and impact on translation teaching. This exploratory study aims at investigating learners’ and instructors’ knowledge of MT, experience in MT use, perceived MT quality, ethics of MT use, and the perceived relationship between MT and translation training, in order to figure out the usefulness of MT in translation competence acquisition and the necessity of MT training. To this end, we conducted surveys and semi-structured interviews and found that the influence of MT in translation competence acquisition is determined by the properties of MT and learners’ quality. MT is particularly helpful in gaining lexical knowledge and knowledge to ensure translation efficiency, but not in bicultural knowledge. However, such usefulness builds on learners’ language proficiency, analytic ability, and learning motivation. In light of the findings, issues including the sustainability of MT from ethical and linguistic perspectives, and the potential and proper use of MT to inform translator training, are discussed. Full article

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are an essential component of renewable electricity infrastructure to resolve the intermittency in the availability of renewable resources. To keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 °C, renewable electricity and electrification of the majority of the sectors are a key proposition of the national and international policies and strategies. Thus, the role of BESS in achieving the climate impact mitigation target is significant. There is an unmet need for a detailed life cycle assessment (LCA) of BESS with lithium-ion batteries being the most promising one. This study conducts a rigorous and comprehensive LCA of lithium-ion batteries to demonstrate the life cycle environmental impact hotspots and ways to improve the hotspots for the sustainable development of BESS and thus, renewable electricity infrastructure. The whole system LCA of lithium-ion batteries shows a global warming potential (GWP) of 1.7, 6.7 and 8.1 kg CO₂ eq kg⁻¹ in change-oriented (consequential) and present with and without recycling credit consideration, scenarios. The GWP hotspot is the lithium-ion cathode, which is due to lithium hexafluorophosphate that is ultimately due to the resource-intensive production system of phosphorous, white, liquid. To compete against the fossil economy, the GWP of BESS must be curbed by 13 folds. To be comparable with renewable energy systems, hydroelectric, wind, biomass, geothermal and solar (4–76 g CO₂ eq kWh⁻¹), 300 folds reduction in the GWP of BESS will be necessary. The areas of improvement to lower the GWP of BESS are as follows: reducing scopes 2–3 emissions from fossil resource use in the material production processes by phosphorous recycling, increasing energy density, increasing lifespan by effective services, increasing recyclability and number of lives, waste resource acquisition for the battery components and deploying multi-faceted integrated roles of BESS. Achieving the above can be translated into an overall avoided GWP of up to 82% by 2040. Full article

Sexism and gender relations in higher education require special attention and are a topic of great interest in regulations related to education. The low participation percentage of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) studies has been identified as one of the main problems that must be resolved in order to close the gender gap that exists in the technology sector. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of professional competences on the selection of university studies according to the absence or presence of masculinization factors in those studies. Mechanical engineering competences, both generic and transversal, and competence acquisition methods, are classified into ‘care’ (feminine) or ‘provisions’ (masculine) concepts. After the competence analysis, it can be concluded that explicit engineering curricula are focused on “provisions”, which translates into a cultural perception of industrial engineering as a male profession. After a professional competence analysis in engineering studies at The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), our study identified a relationship between the masculinization factors included in professional competences and the selection of university studies. This paper presents working actions towards the incorporation of a gender perspective into the degree in mechanical engineering at the UPV/EHU. Full article