1137 Perceptions of the use of technology in a blended learning occupational health nursing programme in durban, south africa

Abstract

Introduction Violence in hospitals is a serious occupational health and safety (OHS) issue affecting the physical and mental health of front line staff, as well as, the quality of patient care. In 2010, the province of Ontario (Canada) introduced legislation that directs hospitals to put into place violence prevention and management systems. Our study examined how five Ontario hospitals have developed and implemented their violence prevention programs. Methods Semi structured interviews were conducted with eight key informants external to hospitals (legislators, union leaders, hospital associations), management and occupational health and safety specialists in hospitals (n=40), 21 focus groups (n=115) and interviews (n=6) with front line workers. Five hospitals participated in the study. Interview and focus group questions focused on the effect of the legislation on the development of violence prevention programs and how these were implemented across departments. Once data were collected, a code list was developed by the research team by reviewing the transcripts. Each transcript was coded by two researchers and then a thematic, inductive analysis was carried out. The constant comparative method was used to identify differences and similarities across hospitals and to understand factors that shape hospital policies and practices in the area of violence prevention and management. Findings Our study findings suggest that while legislation sets parameters for the development of policies, serious violencerelated events and the presence of a violence prevention 'champion' bolster long-term commitment to violence prevention in hospitals and the development of sustainable programs. We discuss four key components related to the prevention and management of violence in hospitals, namely; security systems, patient 'flagging', codes and alarms and incident reporting. Discussion Our findings detail how management commitment, workplace culture and broader structural factors can shape the implementation of hospital policies around violence prevention and reporting. Study recommendations focus on the long-term sustainability of violence prevention practices in the acute care sector and the implications this can have on worker health. Introduction This presentation provides an overview of the Occupational Audiometric Refresher Programme as field-tested in Gauteng province, South Africa. Despite growth in occupational health, audiometric surveillance is fragmented with poor record quality in RSA as similarly reported in USA and UK. Limited training opportunities perpetuate in Africa with no legal requirement for audiometrists to attend refresher programmes. The study thus developed and tested an intervention that would improve audiogram quality and cohesive result management. Method Mixed methods enriched the structured modularised blended learning refresher programme that evolved. A one group pre-test, post-test field-test with 49 purposively sampled registered audiometrists. Quality of the pre-intervention biological calibrati...

Nursing and Midwifery Students’ Perceptions and Experiences of Using Blended Learning in Rwanda: A Qualitative Study

“…However, the use of the BL approach in pre-service health education programs poses major challenges, such as lack of knowledge and skills among educators as well learners, hard and soft infrastructure facilities including internet connections and computers in most universities. [31][32][33] The BL approach became an important alternative to the traditional teaching when the COVID-19 pandemic started in Rwanda. BL enabled the continuity of teaching while respecting preventive measures against the pandemic.…”

“…However, there are several challenges encountered by HLIs in low-resource countries, such as internet connectivity and computers to be used for BL. [5,31,32,34] Since BL was new to some HLIs and others have encountered several challenges, there was a need to conduct a study that documents the students' perceptions about BL in Rwanda. Therefore, this study explored the nursing and midwifery students' perceptions and experiences of using BL in HLIs in Rwanda.…”

Perspectives of Nurse Educators Towards Technology-based Education in Selected KwaZulu-Natal Nursing Colleges

“…The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reports that nurses are the late adopters of technology, with their increasing age regarded as an important contributing factor to this delay. Orton et al (2015) report that computer anxiety in nurses interferes with the adoption of electronic learning. Almost all of the participants disagreed that they get a sinking feeling when they think of trying to use e-learning.…”

Open Learning in the African Context: Challenges and Possibilities for Self-directed Learning

“…A trend was observed that in some studies the third-generation cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 1987) is used as an analytic lens (De Beer, 2016;De Beer & Mentz, 2017;Petersen, 2018). Basic qualitative study Aheto et al (2017), De Beer and Mentz (2017), Du Toit-Brits (2019), Iiyambo and Geduld (2019), Jacobs and Van Loggerenberg (1996), Kruger et al (2015), Lekalakala-Mokgele and Caka (2015), Lumina (2005), Sujee et al (2015) Bricolage Setlhodi (2019), Van Wyk (2017) Case study Du Toit et al (2016), Maistry (2009), Malan et al (2014), Orton and Nokes (2012), Terblanché (2010) Design-based research De Beer (2019b)…”

“…In this regard, there was research related to the use of Turnitin for writing instruction (Sujee et al, 2015) as well as the use of online assessment tools (Aheto et al, 2017). Orton and Nokes (2012) also reported on SDL within a blended learning context for an occupational health nursing course.…”