Background Nurses are widely recognized as patient and family advocates and are among the most trusted professionals globally. Nurses are expected to uphold high ethical standards, including protection of vulnerable populations, through clinical competency and conscious advocacy. Advocacy grows complex when ethical dilemmas arise. Conflicts can occur between expected care, organizational requirements, and/or regulatory directives, and a nurse's own values. Amid social upheaval, political and economic turmoil, and shortages of staff and equipment, nurses in war, disaster, or mass displacement contexts face difficult choices to meet patient needs. Purpose This article explores how nurses respond when confronted with realities potentially harmful to patient rights or welfare, or when asked to deliver care in ways that may compromise outcomes. These crises of conscience arise for many reasons across diverse global contexts. Methods The article reviews vignettes drawn from discussions with nursing colleagues across several countries, highlighting concerns nurses report facing in the current geopolitical climate. Conclusions Findings suggest that these crises of conscience are a common, cross-cultural feature of nursing practice, reflecting shared ethical tensions rather than isolated occurrences. Implications for Practice These vignettes reflect real conditions within global nursing. They resonate across nursing as an international professional entity, highlighting the need for continued attention to ethical challenges nurses face during crises.
Creative Nursing 2026, with its overarching theme of The Sociology of Nursing, has illuminated the social dimensions of health, illness, and health-care delivery. This issue of the journal contains articles by authors from Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Ghana, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and the US, on topics that have resonance far beyond the countries in which they were written. Categories include internationality in diverse global contexts, climate change and sustainability, universal challenges, and honoring diversity. These transnational and often transdisciplinary articles are setting the stage for our 2027 publication year's theme: The Global Nursing Profession.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) language models are increasingly used in higher education. Many students use them for learning, often without proper academic policies or guidelines. Nursing undergraduate curricula include both theoretical and practical aspects of learning, in which critical thinking is essential, especially for clinical decision-making. This review explores the effects of AI language models on the critical thinking skills of undergraduate nursing students. Sixty-seven articles published between 2020 and 2025 on AI in nursing, medicine, or higher education, and its impact on learning and cognition, were analyzed and synthesized. Findings revealed that AI language models offer benefits, limitations, and ethical concerns. Benefits include improved academic writing, rapid access to information, and support for self-directed learning. Limitations include overdependence, biased content, and reduced social learning. Ethical concerns include confidentiality and plagiarism. In nursing education, AI models affect critical thinking both positively and negatively, enhancing simulated clinical decision-making but potentially reducing independent analysis and interactions with real patients. Studies recommend developing guidelines, training, and balanced integration to maximize benefits while minimizing risks.
Objective To conduct a scoping review of existing nursing informatics competency assessment tools in China and abroad. Methods Following the methodological framework for scoping reviews, eight databases were systematically searched for studies related to tools assessing nursing informatics competency. The search period was from database inception to 10 March 2025. Two researchers independently completed literature screening and data extraction. Results A total of 41 articles were finally included, involving 23 tools. Among these, 22 articles reported tool development, 11 cross-cultural adaptations, three tool revisions, and five tool validations. Conclusion This study systematically reviewed existing nursing informatics competency assessment tools in China and abroad and found that most tools were developed by scholars in the United States and have not yet been localized for China. In the future, scholars may develop or culturally adapt assessment tools based on China's national context to promote the study and application of nursing informatics competency in the country.
Climate change, environmental degradation, and increasing pressure on health-care resources highlight the need for nurses who are prepared to promote planetary health and sustainable health care. Nursing education provides an important opportunity to develop students’ sustainability consciousness and planetary health competencies. This study examined nursing students’ sustainability consciousness, including self-reported knowingness, attitudes, and stewardship-related behaviour, and their perceived planetary health competency, and explored associated sociodemographic and academic factors. An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 undergraduate nursing students at the College of Nursing, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. As these outcomes were assessed using self-report measures, the findings reflect students’ reported perceptions and behaviours rather than objectively observed knowledge or practices. Data were collected using the Short Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire and the Planetary Health Competency Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation tests, group comparisons, and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Students demonstrated relatively high sustainability consciousness and moderate-to-high perceived planetary health competency. Overall sustainability consciousness was not significantly related to planetary health competency. Previous sustainability education was associated with higher sustainability consciousness, whereas the examined sociodemographic and academic characteristics were not significantly associated with planetary health competency. Nursing curricula should integrate sustainability and planetary health education across academic levels and provide experiential opportunities that connect environmental knowledge with sustainable health-care practices, stewardship, and climate-responsive nursing.
