Experiences and Preparedness of Nursing Students and Recent Nurse Graduates Delivering Cardiovascular Health Promotion for People Living With Intellectual Disabilities.
Andraea Van Hulst, Rosa Elena Ponce-Alcala, Anaële Cuerrier and 3 others
PMID 42051053WHAT IT FOUND
Most said they felt low on confidence and readiness before the programme and better after.
The ones who adapted well to each athlete slowed down, used visual aids and asked athletes to explain things back, and redirected caregivers who answered for the athlete.
Key findings
01Junior nurses described five themes in delivering the programme: a person-centred approach to care, fostering self-determination and empowerment, building collaborative partnerships, taking account of athletes' surroundings, and seizing learning opportunities.
02Before the programme 13 of 20 nurses recalled low confidence and 12 of 20 recalled low readiness to work with people with intellectual disabilities; afterwards 2 of 20 rated confidence low and 2 of 20 rated readiness low.
03Nurses said the hardest topics to explain were abstract ones such as stress management and the link between lifestyle and heart disease, and those who felt more skilled used visual aids, asked athletes to explain things back and tied topics to the athlete's own life.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 20 of the 32 nurses who delivered the programme took part, and the main reason given for not taking part was lack of time. The participants had volunteered for a paid extra role, so they may have been more motivated than the average nurse. Confidence and readiness were asked about after the fact, from memory, with no measurements taken before the programme began and no comparison group. The group was mostly women (19 of 20) and similar in training and experience, and all were trained at one university where the Strengths-Based Nursing philosophy is already taught. Findings come from one city and all sessions were in English. No views were collected from nursing students or new graduates who took part in the programme but who did not join this study. The athletes were already taking part in organised Special Olympics activities and had support from the organisation's staff, so the setting was more structured and supportive than most clinical settings. Details of the PAtH intervention and its effect on athletes' health are reported in another paper, so this study cannot tell you whether the programme changed anything for the athletes.
Declared interests
Funded by a Special Olympics Canada Research Grant and by in-kind support from Special Olympics Quebec, the organisation whose athletes took part and whose staff supported the nurses during sessions. One author is supported by a Fonds de la recherche du Quebec-Sante Junior 2 award. The authors state the sponsors had no role in the design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or the decision to submit, and declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the higher confidence ratings as proof that the programme works. They are 20 nurses recalling how they felt before and after taking part, with no comparison group and no measurements made at the time. The labels of 'advanced beginner' and 'competent' come from how the researchers read the interviews, not from any test of the nurses' skill, and no athlete outcomes are reported in this paper.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →