The importance of human dignity in care is well-recognized. Care recipients' experiences with undignified care have been reported in many countries. However, few studies have measured these situations quantitatively, especially as there are no tools applicable to inpatients receiving ordinary daily care. This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable Inpatient Dignity Scale (IPDS) that can measure inpatients' expectations of and satisfaction with dignity in daily care. Methods: We conducted a three-phase research project: item generation and a preliminary survey with 47 items related to patients' dignity in Japan, a main survey with 36 items with deliberate translation into English in Singapore, and a confirmatory survey with 35 items in England, with 442, 430, and 500 inpatients as participants in questionnaire surveys, respectively. Data from each survey were processed using factor analysis. Results: Authors obtained a scale with a four-factor structure with acceptable reliability: (F1) respect as a human being, (F2) respect for personal feelings and time, (F3) respect for privacy, and (F4) respect for autonomy. Conclusion: The Inpatient Dignity Scale can be periodically used by hospital administrators or nurses to preserve inpatients' dignity in daily care by monitoring inpatients' views regarding their expectations of and satisfaction with dignity.

Background:Protecting the dignity of elderly residents of facilities and providing dignified care can be difficult. Although attempts have been made from several aspects, dignity is considered an area in which less real impact has been made in both theory and practice.Objective:The objective of this study is to characterize the concept of dignity in care for elderly subjects in residential facilities from a practical perspective through concept synthesis.Research design:This study includes in-depth interviews with residents of elderly facilities and a literature review.Participants and research context:A total of 12 residents of seven facilities in three prefectures in Japan were recruited via purposive sampling, and 27 interviews were conducted. Each digitally recorded interview was transcribed verbatim. The interview data were analyzed based on hermeneutic phenomenological research. The literature was searched using PubMed, CINAHL, and Web of Science with combinations of terms such as dignity, elderly, and residential facilities and then selected according to the predefined inclusion criteria. The descriptions about dignity in the included studies were divided into codes and compared with the results of the interviews.Ethical considerations:This study was approved by the institutional review board of Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Medicine.Findings and discussion:There were 1728 data codes for the interviews from which four themes were generated. In the literature review, 3716 titles were searched, and 28 articles were selected. Combining these results, five following themes and a conceptual matrix were obtained: individual dignity not affected by others; dignified care in a narrow sense; elements of the staff side; dignity in relation to family members, friends, society, and other residents; and dignity in relation to nursing care facilities and the nursing care system.Conclusion:According to the established matrix, we must consider the role of the care system, facility, family, and society in providing care with dignity and the individual dignity to residents and dignity in daily care.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the minimum necessary educational content in the area of nursing ethics in a basic nursing education program, and the level of students' mastery of this content, based on a Delphi study in both educational and clinical settings. A Delphi study was conducted in three rounds with faculty members who teach nursing ethics at all 158 four-year nursing universities in Japan as targeted panelists. In this study the opinions on nursing ethics of nursing instructors responsible for hospital education at all 82 special functioning hospitals were reflected in the panelists' opinions. Consensus was obtained on 41 items from a total of 63 items in 4 proposed frameworks. There were 20 items related to the Concept of nursing ethics, 7 items related to Ethical codes, 13 items related to Ethical issues and methods to resolve them, and 1 item related to Efforts and issues in practical and educational settings. Consensus as to desired level of mastery was reached on a total of 40 items. This agreed-upon level involved understanding of the concept for 22 items, the ability to explain the concept for 16 items, and the ability to act based on the concept for 2 items.

515-523Introductions: Digitization could be incorporated in rural areas of resource-poor countries because information gathered by nurses working on-site could be better used. Background: For effective management of community health information, the usage and maintenance of digital records are important. Digitization of information provides essential information for informing health policy. Aim: To develop a sustainable database to effectively collect and manage community health information and nursing practice. Methods: This study used a mixed method design. Phase 1 involved the development of a database system through repeated systematic focus group discussions with community health nurses. Phase 2 involved a practical trial examination of the developed system with both objective and subjective evaluations. Results: A nursing database system was developed with templates designed for the major health problems of communities. The templates were composed of multiple-choice items and a free-text field that allowed records to be more detailed than handwritten records and maintained in standardized formats. This enables accumulation of data that were less likely to be influenced by the variance of ability in each nurse. Discussion and conclusion: A multifaceted evaluation of the database system suggested that it could improve the efficiency of information management and contribute to the improvement of nursing care quality through standardization of the recording pattern. Implications for nursing and health policy: The nursing database will enable high-quality information storage that will potentially better inform health and healthcare policies as well as enable visualization of data concerning nursing care challenges and activities within the relevant communities. This information is Correspondence address: Naoko Arakawa, Department of Nursing, College of Life and Health Sciences, Chubu University, 1200 Matsumoto, Kasugai, Aichi 487-8501, Japan; Tel: 81-568-51-1111; Fax: 81-568-51-5370; E-mail: n-maruyama@isc.chubu.ac.jp. FundingThis study was carried out upon receiving a JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)15K20819 as well as a research grant from the Mitsubishi Foundation. Conflict of interestNo conflict of interest has been declared by the authors. © 2018 International Council of NursesThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.Original Article essential for policy development and implementation in areas of human and fiscal resource allocations and meeting training/education needs.Keywords: Chronic Diseases, Community Health Nursing, Database System, Electronic Health Records, Information Technology, Resource-Poor Countries, Rural Areas, System Usability, Thailand IntroductionInformation and communication technology (ICT) is an effective tool to promote health care in resource-poor countr...

In Japan, the clinical nurse instructor is a staff nurse who teaches in clinical practicums. However, there is no consensus on the essential roles that clinical nurse instructors are expected to perform. We conducted a three-round Delphi survey to clarify the essential roles of the clinical nurse instructor in clinical practicums in undergraduate nursing education. The participants were an expert panel of 48 professionals in nursing education and clinical practicums, who rated the importance of 58 role items that were established through a literature review and pilot survey. Thirty one of these items were identified as essential roles, based on agreement of 80% or more of respondents. Further investigation revealed nine of the 31 items to be core roles, defined as the minimum essential roles that must be performed by clinical nurse instructors, however busy they become. The nine core roles are related to proper preparation for the clinical practicum, patient safety, and coordination with the nursing school faculty. It is important for the nursing school faculty to support and work in cooperation with clinical nurse instructors to help them fulfill these roles.