Background: Dementia care requires a skilled workforce, yet access to scalable and effective training for formal caregivers, including nurses, remains inconsistent. Digital education is a potential solution, but effectiveness is unclear. Aims: To examine digital dementia training programmes for formal caregivers and map their reported effects on knowledge, self-efficacy and skills. Methods: A scoping review was conducted using the Arksey and O’Malley framework and reported according to Reporting followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Five electronic databases were searched for peer-reviewed studies evaluating fully digital dementia training interventions for formal caregivers. Methodological quality and reporting completeness were assessed using the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool and the Guideline for Reporting Evidence-based Educational Interventions and Teaching checklist. Findings were synthesised narratively. Results: Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Digital training (online and microlearning) was associated with improvements in dementia-related knowledge and self-efficacy. Flexibility and accessibility were key advantages. However, evidence of skill development and behavioural change was limited, predominantly based on self-reported outcomes. Direct care workers were underrepresented. Conclusions: Digital dementia training offers flexible, scalable workforce education for those caring for people living with dementia. However, limited evidence on practice change constrains its application. Further research is needed to inform theory, guide implementation and support policy decisions regarding effective workforce training.
Background: Expert panels are widely used in nursing research to judge whether items, definitions or diagnostic components adequately represent a content domain. However, numerical indices for these tasks are often treated as if they all measured the same entity. Aims: To examine classical and less commonly discussed procedures used to summarise expert judgement in content-validation studies. Methods: A narrative methodological review and analytical demonstration used seminal and later methodological sources to address five predefined questions; hypothetical datasets were used only to reproduce and compare the procedures. Findings: The procedures are not interchangeable; while some summarise the proportion of experts endorsing relevance or essentialness, others preserve graded ratings, some adjust a proportion for a chance model and others focus on disagreement, coverage or item-to-domain mapping. Because these procedures transform expert judgements differently, the same ratings can produce different numerical values. Small panels can also produce imprecise estimates even when a point estimate appears favourable. Conclusion: Researchers should choose a procedure because it answers their methodological question. Clear reporting of the target domain, expert task, original ratings, formula, panel size, uncertainty and complementary agreement or reliability information makes content-validation evidence easier to interpret and use.
Background: Qualitative methods relying on verbal articulation systematically exclude participants whose experiences are shaped by power asymmetry, prior conditioning to silence and racialised environments. LEGO ® Serious Play ® (LSP) has shown potential as an inclusive approach, but its theorisation as a methodology remains underdeveloped. Aims: This paper advances a four-principle framework for the situational application of LSP as a context-responsive qualitative methodology and contribution to equity-centred nursing research. Methods: Drawing on an interpretative phenomenological analysis study with racially minoritised (RM), internationally transitioning nursing students in UK higher education, the paper examines conditions under which LSP generates access to experiences shaped by power, hierarchy and structural inequities of racialised transition. Results: Situational LSP enabled participants to materialise tacit experiences of power, identity and belonging through construction, generating spatial and symbolic data qualitatively different from verbal accounts. The framework comprises four principles: context sensitivity, participant voice and positioning, meaning-making through metaphor, and construction and researcher reflexivity. Conclusions: The situational application of LSP is a transferable methodological contribution to nursing research. For practice and education, it offers a model prioritising equity of voice among RM and transitioning nursing students. For policy it highlights the need for approaches addressing experiential complexity of internationally educated nurses navigating racialised professional transition.
Background: Professional identity development in nursing is a continuous process. The conceptual model of professional identity in nursing (PIN) identifies ‘Nurse as Leader’ as one of the four pillars. The influence of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) is an often overlooked yet vital component in shaping a nurse’s professional identity. Aims: Using the Nexus of DEIB and PIN conceptual model, this theoretical paper focuses on the intersection between the model and leadership theories to support the development of future nurse leaders within the United States, Canada and globally. Methods: A logical argument to extend the existing Nexus of DEIB framework to education, research and practice will be presented following a four-stage methodological framework review to support the development of ‘Nurse as Leader’ across the academic trajectory into practice. Results and conclusions: Global nurse leaders are challenged to incorporate PIN and the DEIB framework to understand how it can positively impact research, education and technology, including artificial intelligence and practice development. This paper contributes to nursing by increasing awareness as well providing practical implications for nurse leaders.
