Information Skills for Nursing Students

Kay Hutchfield

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781844457465
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nursing Skills

It is essential for nursing students to access current and reliable information to succeed in academic assignments and nursing practice, yet there are increasingly diverse information sources available, which can raise questions about the authenticity and reliability of information provided. This book presents a practical and clear guide to mastering information skills. It shows the reader how to effectively plan and implement a search for information and make judgements on the quality of the sources found. It also gives strategies for storage and retrieval of information, helping nurses to maximise the time they have available for keeping up to date.

Chapter 1

Getting ready to study

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Draft NMC Standards for Pre-registration Nursing Education

This chapter will address the following draft competencies:

Domain: Professional values

8. All nurses must be responsible and accountable for keeping their own knowledge and skills up-to-date through continuing professional development and life-long learning. They must use evaluation, supervision and appraisal to improve their performance and enhance the safety and quality of care and service delivery.

9. All nurses must recognise the limits of their own competence and knowledge. They must reflect on their own practice and seek advice from, or refer to, other professionals where necessary.

Domain: Communication and interpersonal skills

2. All nurses must use a range of communication skills and technologies to support person-centred care and enhance the quality and safety of healthcare. They must make sure that people receive all the information they need about their care in a language and manner that is right for them, and that allows them to make informed choices and consent to treatment.

3. All nurses must use verbal, non-verbal and written communication to listen, recognise, interpret and record people’s knowledge and understanding of their needs. They must share information with others while respecting individual rights to confidentiality.

9. All nurses must maintain accurate, clear and complete written or electronic records using the right kind of language, avoiding jargon, and using plain English so that everyone involved in the care process understands the meaning.

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Draft Essential Skills Clusters

This chapter will address the following draft ESCs:

Cluster: Care, compassion and communication

6. People can trust the newly registered nurse to engage therapeutically and actively listen to their needs and concerns, responding using skills that are helpful, providing information that is clear, accurate, meaningful and free from jargon.

By the first progression point:

i. Communicates effectively both orally and in writing, so that the meaning is always clear.

By entry to the register:

ix. Provides accurate and comprehensive written and verbal reports based on best available evidence.

Cluster: Organisational aspects of care

14. People can trust the newly registered graduate nurse to be autonomous and confident as a member of the multi-displinary or multi-agency team and to inspire confidence in others.

By the second progression point:

v. Communicates with colleagues verbally, face-to-face and by telephone, and in writing and electronically in a way that the meaning is clear, and checks that the communication has been fully understood.

15. People can trust the newly registered graduate nurse to safely delegate to others and to respond appropriately when a task is delegated to them.

By entry to the register:

v. Recognises and addresses deficits in knowledge and skill in self and others and takes appropriate action.

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Chapter aims

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• understand the nature of key skills and their relevance to studying at university and to professional practice;
• use a series of self-analysis tools to identify areas that may enhance or inhibit your ability to develop successfully your information literacy skills;
• create a personal development plan (PDP) that will facilitate the development and enhancement of the skills necessary to study successfully at university.

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Introduction

In 1997, Sir Ron Dearing produced a report on an inquiry into higher education and made recommendations regarding the development of skills seen as essential for all graduates to develop:

we believe that four skills are key to the future success of graduates whatever they intend to do in later life. These four are: communication skills; numeracy; the use of information technology; learning how to learn.

(Dearing, 1997, s9:17)

These key skills are now embedded in university programmes and will be part of the assessment criteria in your programme or module outlines. The primary focus of this book is to facilitate the development of students’ use of information technology (IT), so they can efficiently access the quality information needed to support their studies and their practice. Using IT is often described as ‘information literacy skills’ and includes library skills, word-processing, data-management and the use of the internet and email.

However, information literacy skills cannot be seen in isolation from the other key transferable skills identified by Dearing (1997). In particular, communication and using IT are interdependent skills. Therefore, this first chapter will review aspects of these two key skills through the use of a series of self-assessment tools, to enable students to identify any areas that need further development before embarking on the more specific aspects of information literacy skills needed by nursing students.

Academic failure is one of the key factors influencing students leaving university (DH, 2007; Yorke and Longden, 2008). This chapter is designed to allow you to assess whether you have the necessary key skills to be successful at university, and to formulate a plan to further develop the skills you have and address any areas of weakness.

If you have studied recently and feel confident in your academic writing skills, go to the end of the chapter and complete the ‘Knowledge review’. Once you have assessed your knowledge, you can decide which sections of this chapter you need to read or if you can safely move straight to Chapter 2.

For those who have not studied for a while, or are not confident in their academic ability, it will be useful to work though this chapter to identify key skills that need developing. Once areas for improvement have been identified, it is possible to make a plan for developing these skills and thus reducing the risk of academic failure. Effective preparation and awareness of the expectations of higher education are the keys to successful studying.

It is not only the university that sets standards for nursing students. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has standards in terms of the knowledge and skills it expects nursing students to have at registration. The new standards are outlined in the ‘Competency framework’ of the draft Standards for Pre-registration Nursing Education (NMC, 2010). The boxes at the start of each chapter of this book show the specific learning skills that are relevant to each chapter and that the NMC expects you to have to be able to register as a nurse.

The NMC also expects nurses to continue to develop their knowledge and skills throughout their professional career, as specified in the NMC Code (2008a). This aspect will be considered in the section on personal development planning.

Communication skills

Communication involves both verbal and non-verbal skills, and includes verbal presentation and body language, as well as written and electronic communication. This chapter will focus primarily on verbal, written and electronic communication.

Verbal communication

When you are with your friends and family you will share a common language that enables you to feel confident to express your views and opinions freely. At university and in practice the language used will include words you are unfamiliar with and it may sometimes feel as if p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Getting reading to study
• 2. Planning a search for information
• 3. Going to the right places for information
• 4. Using information in your work
• 5. Managing electronic information
• 6. Health informatics and continuing professional development
• References
• Index