An Interdisciplinary Partnership Approach to Improving the Digital Literacy Skills of Nursing Students to Become Digitally Fluent, Work-Ready Graduates

Digital transformation and the development of a digitally fluent nursing workforce are necessary for engagement with digital technologies in healthcare settings. For this purpose, educators aim to develop workforce-ready graduates equipped with disciplinary knowledge, expertise, and digital capabilities supportive of further professional development. Having identified a subset of nursing students with low levels of digital literacy, the nursing faculty engaged with library services and the academic skills unit to develop and embed a sustainable Nursing Digital Literacy Module in the graduate entry to practice nursing program. This paper reports on the model created and early evaluation of the student uptake of the module.

Marketing and Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Partnership

Students enrolled in Psychology of Aging and Consumer Behavior combined efforts during an 8-week course to create marketing plans focused on proposing a product or service targeting older adults. The goal of the project was to 1) infuse aging content into the curriculum 2) increase awareness of older adult consumers and 3) decrease aging stereotypes. Student teams were engaged in this project one day each week over 8 weeks. Instructors created weekly tasks to break down components of the project and each student group was required to turn in evidence of their completed task. During the 2020-2021 academic year, participants used Microsoft Teams and recorded their tasks for instructors to grade. A rubric was used to facilitate grading of weekly team tasks and similar weights/points were used in both classes to create similar levels of student “buy in.” Suggested implementation tips for both face-to-face and online modalities will be discussed.

Integrating a Sport-Based Trauma-Sensitive Program in a National Youth-Serving Organization

There is a pressing need to equip youth-serving community organizations to respond to the unique needs of trauma-exposed children. Early prevention measures can be an effective means of redirecting children to self-regulatory healing, while facilitating their transition toward strength-based thriving. Sport can offer a powerful opportunity to reach these children; however there remains little information on how to effectively develop, deliver, evaluate, and sustain trauma-sensitive sport programs in a community context. The purpose of this paper is to outline a case study of integrating sport-based trauma-sensitive practices with BGC Canada’s national Bounce Back League program. An interdisciplinary partnership of academic, community, and practice experts used a community-based participatory action research approach, paired with a knowledge translational approach, to guide the process of program development. Mixed methods (e.g., surveys, logbooks, interviews, focus groups, online communications) were used to generate ongoing insights of staff’s training experiences, successes and challenges of program implementation, and potential impact of program on club members. Several stages of program development are described, including: (a) collaboratively planning the program; (b) piloting the program to three clubs; (c) adapting the program using pilot insights; (d) expanding the adapted program to ten clubs; and (e) creating opportunities to maintain, sustain, and scale-out practices throughout grant duration and beyond. Lessons learned regarding the leadership team’s experiences in terms of developing, adapting, and integrating trauma-sensitive practices in this community context are shared.

Working conditions of a nursing team in mental health facility

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze how the nursing team from a Psychosocial Care Center II relates its insertion in the service with the work process. Methods: Descriptive, analytical research outlined as a case study with a qualitative approach. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nursing professionals and went through content analysis subsidized by Bardin’s work. Results: Two thematic categories emerged: a) Ways of intake in the nursing services at the Psychosocial Care Center; b) Setbacks in nursing routine at the Psychosocial Care Center. Final considerations: The fact that the professionals have not planned to work in mental health nor have training impacts the rhythm of psychosocial care development at the Psychosocial Care Center, forcing them to seek training in the field after admission. Unmotivated by the working conditions, the nursing team suffers from the absence of an interdisciplinary partnership and goes to great lengths to approach psychosocial care.

Narcissus and Echo: Reflections on an Art-Science Collaboration

More than a decade ago, our previous Leonardo contribution described our goal of establishing a basis for scientific exploration of blood flow dynamics closely intertwined with the visual arts. Here we present a case study of new collaborative art-science exploration. We show how paradigms we co-developed for visually abstracting cerebral aneurysm blood flows were extrapolated to sonification and bi-modal representations, and how a close interdisciplinary partnership was effected by guiding engineering students versed in the arts and artists adept with digital technology towards the final outcomes being more than the sum of their parts.

Interdisciplinary Professional Partnerships

With the growing diversity of professions working in schools, interdisciplinary partnership and collaboration are growing quickly the world over. Apart from traditional teaching and learning concerns, awareness of children and youth mental health issues and socio-emotional wellbeing, grew readily since the 2000s. Rising in tandem with this trend is the number of psychologists, social workers, and counselors joining educators to support children and young persons in schools. Challenges such as misconception of roles, differing perceptions as well as cross-disciplinary misunderstanding threaten to prevent concerned professionals in working collaborative to help children and young persons in need. Fortunately, this aspect of interdisciplinary partnership in schools gains the much-needed attention in research from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the Americas. Models and frameworks suggesting best practices for interdisciplinary collaboration emerged in school psychology, counseling and social work literature. Also growing in tandem is research in methods of measurement and evaluation of such collaboration as well as studies on pre-service professional training on interdisciplinary collaborative skills in the related disciplines.

Seroprevalence of Brucellosis in sheep in Maigana and Birnin Gwari agro-ecological zones of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Brucellosis is an ancient and one of the world’s most widespread zoonotic diseases affecting public health and animal production. A cross-sectional study using simple random sampling was conducted between May and December, 2016 in Maigana and Birnin Gwari Agro-ecological zones of Kaduna State to determine the sero-prevalence of brucellosis in sheep. In addition the risk factors associated with sero-positivity in sheep were also assessed. A total of 400 sera samples comprised of 141 from males and 259 from females sheep were collected and screened for the presence of Brucella antibodies using Rose Bengal Plate test (RBPT) and competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA). Sera analysis revealed that, 16.5% and 10.8% were seropositive to Brucella infection by RBPT and cELISA, respectively. There was statistically significant association between sex of the sheep and seropositivity to Brucella infection using RBPT (P < 0.05). Meanwhile, no statistically significant association between the age and breed of sheep and seropositivity to Brucella infection using RBPT and cELISA, respectively (P > 0.05). This study shows evidence of Brucella infection with high prevalence mainly among female sheep and the disease can be considered as a potential risk for both susceptible animals and humans in the study area. Therefore, creating awareness about brucellosis, interdisciplinary partnership and complementary effort between veterinary and public health professionals is very important to control the transmission of brucellosis.Keywords: Brucellosis, Kaduna State, Sheep, Sero-prevalence

Exploring and Improving Student Engagement in an Accelerated Undergraduate Nursing Program through a Mentoring Partnership: An Action Research Study

This Participatory Action Research (PAR) project aimed to engage students from an accelerated 'fast track' nursing program in a mentoring collaboration, using an interdisciplinary partnership intervention with a group of academics. Student participants represented the disciplines of nursing and paramedicine with a high proportion of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students. Nine student mentors were recruited and paired with academics for a three-month ‘mentorship partnership’ intervention. Data from two pre-intervention workshops and a post-intervention workshop were coded in NVivo11 using thematic analysis. Drawing on social inclusion theory, a qualitative analysis explored an iteration of themes across each action cycle. Emergent themes were: 1) ‘building relationships for active engagement’, 2) ‘voicing cultural and social hierarchies’, and 3) ‘enacting collegiate community’. The study offers insights into issues for contemporary accelerated course delivery with a diverse student population and highlights future strategies to foster effective student engagement.

Do we need more training for interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration prior to implementing any primary care research action?

There has been a continuously increasing focus and discussion on interdisciplinary collaboration in primary care, across various settings and in different forums, during the past few years. Interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration should be a cornerstone of daily practice and context-relevant research. We considered it important for this manuscript to attempt to address some of the key issues linked to the recognised need for competence-based training, focusing on interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration, so as to promote and enhance context-relevant research in primary care. This article provides a general introduction and an overview of this topic, along with some key concepts and operational definitions. These key definitions and their interrelated nature are examined in detail, including those of practice-based research network, patient-centred primary care research, and interdisciplinary partnership for research. Furthermore, this paper outlines the reasons for the strong focus on composition and the development of strategies to enhance the research capacity of interdisciplinary partnerships throughout training. Workforce training, retention and academic collaboration are considered, with a particular focus on primary care, and existing interprofessional relationships and perceptions thereof. Organizational aspects influencing relationships and practice are considered along with their contribution in terms of practice, research and discourse. Finally, conclusions and recommendations, formed under the prism of rapidly changing population needs, person-centred values and the imperative need of bringing innovation to the patient in an effective and efficient manner, are presented for further discussion.