Health Science Colleges Research

“This is the first reported study from SA on final year preregistration student nurses‟ self-reported depth of understanding of bioscience subjects and of their perceptions of the relevance of bioscience knowledge to their practice” (Rafferty, Kyriacos, 2016:43). Abstract Student nurses’ competence in applying bioscience to practice is under-researched in South Africa. This paper reports on two objectives of a longer study: (1) to describe final year nursing students’ self-reported depth of understanding of six bioscience subjects; and (2) their perceptions of the relevance of the bioscience subjects to their practice using descriptions of personal critical incidents and picture interpretations of three nursing activities. A descriptive observational survey was employed using a self-administered questionnaire at a one-time point in a classroom in a nursing college in Cape Town, South Africa in 2013. A sample of 76/236 (32.2%) fourth-year students participated. Results showed that ...

Penny Gill and I were honoured to be part of a team that published a book Telling stories differently: engaging 21st-century students through digital storytelling(DST).  Published by Sun Media the book evolved as a collaboration between  Janet Condy, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), and CPUT academics to capture their research projects using DST.  The purpose of the book is to share a collection of studies using DST as a pedagogical tool in CPUT.  The book was launched on Thursday 3 September 2015 at the International RASA and Pan African Literacy Conference in the Baxter Hall. The team included Daniela Gachago, Eunice Ivala, Agnes Chigona, Franci Cronje, Veronica Barnes, Rajendra Chetty, Subethra Pather, Chantyclaire Tiba, Ignatius Ticha, Anthea Adams, Ayesha Reiners, and Mandie Richards.  I was privileged to have Dr. Agnes Chigona as a co-author as she steered me throug...

Written by Martha M. Leonard and Una Kyriacos was recently published in Nurse Education Today. The article is in Press, meaning that it is accepted, peer reviewed but volume and issue numbers have not been assigned.   Here is the summary as available from Sciencedirect Background There is increasing urgency for nurses to recognize early signs of deterioration in patients and to take appropriate action to prevent serious adverse effects. Objectives to assess respondents’ ability to identify abnormal recordings for respiratory and heart rate, oxygen saturation level, systolic blood pressure, level of consciousness, urinary output and normal temperature. A nursing college in Cape Town, South Africa. A sample of 77/212 (36.3%) fourth year students. A self-administered adapted questionnaire was employed to collect demographic data and respondents’ selections of recorded physiological values for the purpose of deciding when to call for more skilled help. The median age fo...

Recent Masters in Nursing Graduate, Shahnaaz Mia together with Karien Jooste authored an article   "Self-Leadership of Male Learner Nurses During a Four-Year Program at a College in the Western Cape, South Africa" in the   Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture,  Volume 5, Issue 4. The abstract reads "Self-leadership is an enabling process during which a male student nurse learns to know himself better. This enriched self-awareness enables him to steer his work life. Male learners in the nursing profession could face gender-based challenges during their training that requires self-leadership. The study described the best experiences of self-leadership by male learner nurses during their four-year training programme at a nursing college in the Western Cape Province. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual design, incorporating the philosophy of the Appreciative Inquiry paradigm, was used. Purposive sampling was applied and 12 i...

View the following DVDs at the library Steps in Planning and Conducting a Research Study This DVD  explores the steps for planning and carrying out a research study. It explains how to choose a topic; establish a hypothesis; select dependent and independent variables; choose a research design; select participants; and collect data, analyze results, and share the findings of the study. Qualitative Research: Methods in the Social Sciences This DVD examines the types of questions addressed through qualitative research, considers problems of research validity, examines qualitative textual analysis, and looks at the primary methods of qualitative research. Research Ethics This DVD explores ethical issues in reporting and conducting research and teaches how to avoid breaches in research ethics.

In August 2014 Reinette Roziers presented at the Western Cape Nursing Research Forum.  Amongst the noted presenters were Associate  Prof Sinegugu Duma and Professor Karien Jooste(guest speakers), Charlene Esau, Karien Orton, Suveena Singh, Debbie Ockhuis, and Nandipha Roji. Find Ms. Rozier's abstract below PURPOSE: The research inquiry explored the lived experience of role transition of newly qualified nurses undertaking compulsory community service in health facilities in the Western Cape in 2011. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the inquiry were: a) to describe newly qualified nurses’ feelings and thoughts about their preparedness for role transition from student to community service nurse; and b) to describe their experience of role transition. METHODS: Husserlian descriptive phenomenology, characterized by inductive extraction of units of meaning, was employed to establish ‘essences’ of the lived experience of role transition. Data were collected from eight ...

The number of articles published each year is rising, so it’s vital that as a researcher you need to develop ways to make your article get noticed. To draw more readers, increase visibility in the academic community and potentially gain more citations,   Elsevier produced a brochure to ensure that your article gets the attention it deserves.     Get Noticed: Promoting your article for maximum impact