Paper
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
689
The Effect of a Creative-Bonding Intervention on Nursing Students' Self-Transcendence and Attitudes towards Elders: A Pilot Study
Marcia Hacker, RN, PhD, Beth-El School of Nursing, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Miami Shores, FL, USA, Sandra M. Walsh, RN, PhD, School of Nursing, Barry University, Miami Springs, FL, USA, Shiue Chen, PhD, RN, Nursing, National Tainan Institute of Nursing, Tainan, Taiwan, and Dawn Broschard, PhD, Institutional Research, Barry University, MIami Shores, FL, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: describe the background information that led to the implementation of the study. |
| Learning Objective #2: operationalize steps needed to implement art-making activities of a creative-bonding intervention with a student and/or patient population. |
Nursing students’ disinterest in caring for elders presents health care challenges. As the aged population grows worldwide, school of nursing faculty has responsibilities to promote students’ attitudes towards elder care. A creative bonding intervention (CBI) that consisted of various art-making activities students conducted with elders was pilot tested to capture students’ interest in elders and provide new avenues for communication between student nurses and elders. Reed’s self-transcendence theory was the framework in this quasi-experimental pilot study with nursing students (n =22) who implemented a Creative Bonding Intervention (CBI) and Friendly Visit (FV) at community senior citizen centers. The hypothesis was that the CBI group would have greater self-transcendence and attitudes towards elders than the FV group. Instruments were a demographic survey, a revised Kogan’s Attitudes towards Old people Scale, Reed’s Self-transcendence Scale and a posttest-questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, ANCOVA and Pearson correlation were used for analysis. Pre-post tests results on attitudes and self-transcendence showed positive changes among both groups, but were ns between groups. Students’ qualitative comments indicated that both approaches helped facilitate communication with elders. Results offered support for Reed’s theory that self-transcendence may be enhanced regardless of age. Further research is suggested with an increased sample size, a structured approach that combines CBI and FV, and close supervision of students’ intervention delivery.