Lived experiences of a community regarding its involvement in a university community-based education programme

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Community involvement is one of the crucial principles in the implementation of successful community-based education programmes. However, a gap continues to exist between the rhetoric of this principle and the reality of involving or engaging communities in the education of health professionals. OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the experiences of a community regarding its involvement in a community-based education programme offered by a university nursing school in Durban, South Africa. METHODS: An interpretive existentialist-phenomenological design was employed for its richness in extracting human experiences. Individual interviews were held with school teachers and coordinators from non-government organisations, whilst focus groups were used for school children and community health workers. Although focus group discussions are not well suited for phenomenological studies, they can promote active participation and reduce possible intimidation by providing support through group interaction. Analysis of data was guided by Schweitzer's model for analysing phenomenological data. RESULTS: Themes that emerged from the data include: (1) Community experience of unmet expectations; (2) Benefits to the community from its involvement in the University Nursing School community-based education programme; (3) Existing partnership between the community and the university; (4) Sharing in the case-based learning activities; (5) Awareness of available services, human rights and self-reliance. CONCLUSION: The researched community indeed benefited in its participation in the University Nursing School (UNS) CBE programme. However, there is a need to improve the communication between partners to make the partnership more sustainable through close relationships and interaction. There is also a need for further research on related aspects of the community's involvement.

Related collections

Most cited references 37

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

User and carer involvement in the training and education of health professionals: a review of the literature.

J Repper, J Breeze (2007)

Health policy requires consumer involvement in services, research and education but little is known about how consumers are being involved in healthcare education, the effect on learning and practice, nor how involvement initiatives are being evaluated. To describe methods of involving consumers in healthcare education, discuss ways in which initiatives have been evaluated, and identify areas for development in education, practice and research. All papers reporting specific initiatives involving consumers in health care worker training and education were included. Viewpoint articles and studies of consumers training consumers were excluded. Cinahl, Medline, Assia, PsycINFO, British Nursing Index, Social Science Citation Index, citations from reference lists, relevant websites and personal communication with key people known to be working in this area. A narrative approach was taken with categorisation of data to reflect objectives of selected studies; method of involvement; process issues and evaluation. Thirty-eight papers were included; most provide small-scale qualitative studies of mental health service users and focus on process rather than outcome. Various methods of involvement are described and consumers consistently prioritise the need for training in interpersonal skills over 'technical' skills. There is little research into organisational strategies and no studies investigate the effect of consumer involvement on practice. Two studies indicated that students exposed to consumer involvement demonstrate more empathic understanding and better communication skills. There is tentative evidence that consumer involvement in training enhances workers' skills in the manner prioritised by consumers. However, if consumer involvement in training and education is to facilitate services that reflect the priorities of the people using them, it must be developed in partnership with service providers; further research is needed to explore the impact of consumer involvement and to track the development of organisational consumer involvement strategies, also systems for supporting consumers need to be established, including training for both consumers and staff.

0 comments Cited 49 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Phenomenology as a method to investigate the experience lived: a perspective from Husserl and Merleau Ponty's thought.

Rubens de Camargo Ferreira Adorno, Maria Lúcia Araujo Sadala (2002)

By taking nursing as a human relationships activity, in spite of its strong technical--scientific features, this article reflects on the phenomenological method as one of the ways to develop an investigation and acquire knowledge of the topic. Based on Husserl's phenomenology, which is opposed to the way of doing science based on the laws that regulate the physics and mathematics, the article introduces Merleau Ponty's existential phenomenology as the theoretical foundation for the method it proposes. My existential conceptions--people as historic beings inserted in a world over which they act but which, in its turn, determines them; the human perception as reference for our way of being in the world; the space-time structure of perception--these are the key concepts that have led to the elaboration of an approach to phenomenological research. Steps are proposed for such an approach, namely phenomenological description, reduction and analysis. These lead to the building up of ideographic and nomothetic analyses, thus unveiling and describing general truths about the phenomenon studied. Finally, the possibilities for applying the methodology to nursing research are discussed, illustrated by my research into student nurses' perspectives on working on an isolation ward.

0 comments Cited 32 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Community-engaged scholarship: is faculty work in communities a true academic enterprise?

Catherine Jordan, Diane C Calleson, Sarena Seifer (2005)

Since Ernest Boyer's landmark 1990 report, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, leaders in higher education, including academic medicine, have advocated that faculty members apply their expertise in new and creative ways in partnership with communities. Such community engagement can take many forms, including community-based teaching, research, clinical care, and service. There continues to be a gap, however, between the rhetoric of this idea and the reality of how promotion and tenure actually work in health professions schools. The Commission on Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Health Professions was established in October 2003 with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to take a leadership role in creating a more supportive culture and reward system for community-engaged faculty in the nation's health professions schools. The authors prepared this article to inform the commission's deliberations and to stimulate discussion among educators in the health professions. The authors define the work that faculty engage in with communities, consider whether all work by faculty in community-based settings is actually scholarship, and propose a framework for documenting and assessing community-engaged scholarship for promotion and tenure decisions. They conclude with recommendations for change in academic health centers and health professions schools.