Collaborative and innovative educational approaches are essential to building nurses\' competencies in responding to healthcare challenges and to enhance high-quality nursing practice. Nurses are increasingly learning in various contexts, and thus, the understanding and organising of collaborative learning needs further exploration.
To describe collaborative learning in nursing practice and education from the point of view of nurses, involved as students and teachers in master\'s education in nursing.
Qualitative study using semi-structured focus groups involving 33 nurses as master\'s students and teachers from Estonia and Norway. The data were analysed using inductive content analysis.
The essence of collaborative learning in the context of nursing practice and education was identified as the aggregation of diverse learners\' skills and reflections while working towards shared aims. This fostered the development of workplace competencies, professional attitudes, and personal growth. Organising collaborative learning requires careful planning and synchronisation between clinical and educational organisations.
Collaborative learning is an inclusive method, aiding nurses at different phases of their career to gain knowledge and enhance their soft skills, and potentially reducing professional hierarchies. Further research is needed to develop methods for evaluating the outcomes of collaborative learning.

BACKGROUND: A first clinical placement for nursing students is a challenging period involving translation of theoretical knowledge and development of an identity within the healthcare setting; it is often a time of emotional vulnerability. It can be a pivotal moment for ambivalent nursing students to decide whether to continue their professional training. To date, student expectations prior to their first clinical placement have been explored in advance of the experience or gathered following the placement experience. However, there is a significant gap in understanding how nursing students\' perspectives about their first clinical placement might change or remain consistent following their placement experiences. Thus, the study aimed to explore first-year nursing students\' emotional responses towards and perceptions of their preparedness for their first clinical placement and to examine whether initial perceptions remain consistent or change during the placement experience.
METHODS: The research utilised a pre-post qualitative descriptive design. Six focus groups were undertaken before the first clinical placement (with up to four participants in each group) and follow-up individual interviews (n = 10) were undertaken towards the end of the first clinical placement with first-year entry-to-practice postgraduate nursing students. Data were analysed thematically.
RESULTS: Three main themes emerged: (1) adjusting and managing a raft of feelings, encapsulating participants\' feelings about learning in a new environment and progressing from academia to clinical practice; (2) sinking or swimming, comprising students\' expectations before their first clinical placement and how these perceptions are altered through their clinical placement experience; and (3) navigating placement, describing relationships between healthcare staff, patients, and peers.
CONCLUSIONS: This unique study of first-year postgraduate entry-to-practice nursing students\' perspectives of their first clinical placement adds to the extant knowledge. By examining student experience prior to and during their first clinical placement experience, it is possible to explore the consistency and change in students\' narratives over the course of an impactful experience. Researching the narratives of nursing students embarking on their first clinical placement provides tertiary education institutions with insights into preparing students for this critical experience.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the professional values of graduates of master\'s and doctoral programs in nursing and their views on the contribution of postgraduate education to their professional values.
BACKGROUND: In postgraduate education, which is an important catalyst of professional identity development, a professional is expected to specialize in a field, get into more depth professionally, internalize professional values, and reflect and strengthen these values. To shed light on this expectation, more information is needed to assess the impact of postgraduate education on professional values.
METHODS: A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was used. Data were collected for the quantitative part of the study for 385 graduates of postgraduate nursing education programs in Turkey who were selected using the snowball sampling method, while the maximum variation sampling method was used to collect data from 12 individuals for the qualitative part of the study. The Nurses Professional Values Scale (NPVS) and a Semi-Structured Interview Form were used to collect data in October-December 2022. The quantitative data obtained in the study were analyzed using the SPSS software, and the qualitative data were analyzed using the MAXQDA software.
RESULTS: The mean total NPVS score of the participants was 130.32 ± 21.34 (possible range: 31-155). Among all dimensions, the highest mean score of the participants was in the caring dimension, followed by professionalism and activism. There were significant differences in the NPVS total and subscale scores of the participants based on their views on the contributions of age, institution where they worked, marital status, position at work, and postgraduate education to the acquisition of professional values. In the qualitative dimension of the study, two main themes were identified. One of these themes was the theme of professional values in postgraduate nursing education that covered the categories of professional values gained through postgraduate education, professional values that a nurse who has completed postgraduate education should have, and professional values in postgraduate nursing education. The second theme was the theme named recommendations for providing nurses with professional values through postgraduate education. The integration of data from both components indicated that the qualitative interviews enriched the quantitative findings.
CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that postgraduate nursing education programs contribute greatly to the professional values of graduates and strengthen their professional values.
CONCLUSIONS: For the future of nursing, increasing professional strengths and visibility is significantly associated with professional values. This situation requires nurses with strong professional values. Graduate education programs in nursing should be developed in this direction and focus on development of professional values.

OBJECTIVE: To communicate how the Dutch postgraduate nursing education landscape was redesigned using entrustable professional activities (EPAs). The goal of this initiative was to reduce training time, enhance transfer across nursing specialities and contribute to a better-aligned continuum of initial education, postgraduate education and continuing professional development.
BACKGROUND: Nursing shortages continue to worsen worldwide. An approach to address this growing shortage is to create a more flexible postgraduate training structure, offering training in the just-in-time and just-as-needed models. EPAs can be used as building blocks for training and assessment. Experience with EPAs (i.e. units of professional practice that can be entrusted once a trainee has demonstrated the required competencies) in health professions education, including nursing, is rising rapidly. While EPAs are largely used to create training flexibility within a programme, they can also be used to create flexibility across programmes. In 2018-2022, training hospitals and education institutions in the Netherlands collaborated in the CZO Flex Level Project to redesign the postgraduate nursing education landscape using EPAs.
CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of a flexible postgraduate nursing education model nationwide will face several challenges. An overview of these challenges and suggestions for future research on the effects of the new structure on nursing competence, satisfaction and career development are provided.
CONCLUSIONS: EPAs can imbue flexibility within and across training programmes. Designing an EPA-based educational landscape requires nationally coordinated efforts.
CONCLUSIONS: Redesigning educational structures to allow for more flexibility is critical to address major societal challenges in healthcare.

UNASSIGNED: The use of a validated scale, Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale (SSCRS) to measure nurses\' perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care.
UNASSIGNED: The purpose of this study was to analyse selected psychometric properties of the Polish version of the SSCRS, among them the applicability of the dimensions of spiritual care in nursing, ie, spirituality, spiritual care, religiosity and personalized care, to Polish conditions.
UNASSIGNED: Poland-wide multicentre study with a cross-sectional validation design. The study was conducted between March and June 2019. Seven Polish Nursing Faculties accepted the invitation to participate in the study. A representative sample of 853 nurses enrolled in MSc (postgraduate) programs in nursing participated. After translation and cultural adaption of the SSCRS, the instrument underwent a full psychometric evaluation of its construct validity using (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis), internal consistency (Cronbach\'s alpha and correlation analysis), reliability (test-retest analysis), known-group validity (Student\'s t-test) analysis.
UNASSIGNED: The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the Polish version of the SSCRS was a three-factor model with \"Activity-centred spiritual care\" (9 items), \"Emotional support-centred spiritual care\" (5 items) and \"Religiosity\" (3 items) domains. The Cronbach\'s alpha coefficient for the whole scale was 0.902, and the alpha values for the individual domains were 0.898, 0.873 and 0.563, respectively. The three domains mentioned above seemed to provide a comprehensive understanding of spiritual care perceived subjectively by Polish MSc in nursing students.
UNASSIGNED: This study demonstrated a substantial degree of similarity in the selected psychometric characteristics of the Polish version of SSCRS and the original scale.

BACKGROUND: Advanced practice nurses (APNs) programs are career-development opportunities significant for nursing workforce retention as well as for the quality of patient care. Inconsistency regarding policy, education, titles, scope of practice, skills and competencies have been identified as major challenges in developing advanced practice nursing in Europe. APN roles and education are under development in the Nordic and Baltic countries. However, there is a lack of information on the current state in this region.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to compare APN programs in the Nordic and Baltic countries to identify their commonalities and differences.
METHODS: This descriptive comparative study reviewed seven master\'s level APN programs in six Nordic and Baltic countries. Data was extracted from the programme by the expert teachers or leaders of the programmes (N = 9). Competencies recommended in the European Tuning Project (ETP) and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) guidelines on advanced practice nursing, were used to evaluate the programs. The same informants provided additional information on the current state of APN education in the country.
RESULTS: The admission requirements were similar in the six countries but in two, clinical work experience is an entry requirement. There are two commonly identified APN roles: clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and nurse practitioner (NP). Most of the programs included all the EPT and ICN competencies. The main differences regarded prescribing competencies. All programmes included clinical training, but the methods on how it is implemented varies.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that APN programs in the Nordic and Baltic countries correspond with the recommendations of the European Tuning Project and ICN guidelines. This is an important message for administrators, policymakers, and politicians, as well as the nursing community, on providing opportunities for APNs to practice to their full potential within each country as well as cross-country.
CONCLUSIONS: \"APN programmes in the Nordic and Baltic countries correspond with international guidelines. Special attention is needed in future on the clinical training of APNs\".

BACKGROUND: Nursing talent training should be adjusted in accordance with policies and regulations, the priority areas of health care, the development of nursing disciplines, and changes in nurses\' roles. Experience from nursing education stakeholders indicates that postgraduate education faces numerous challenges. Thus, it is necessary to discuss postgraduates\' experience in cultivating innovative practical ability.
OBJECTIVE: To analyze the experiences of nursing specialist postgraduates in cultivating innovative practical ability to provide a reference for further improvement of the Master of Nursing Specialist program.
METHODS: A qualitative study.
METHODS: A university and its three affiliated tertiary hospitals in H city, China.
METHODS: Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face with 12 postgraduates currently in clinical practice and six postgraduate nurses within two years of graduation between April and June 2022. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and the data were analyzed using the Colaizzi method.
RESULTS: Three key themes emerged: (1) the cognition of innovative practical ability; (2) the experience of cultivating innovative practical ability at school; and (3) the experience of cultivating innovative practical ability in the hospital.
CONCLUSIONS: With a full understanding of the training experience of postgraduates\' innovative practical ability, policymakers and training units can clarify the shortcomings of the training model, make targeted improvements, and work together to build a more scientific and complete MNS training model. Our findings have the potential to inform faculty structure, catalyze curriculum reform, optimize clinical practice to facilitate the development of Master of Nursing Specialist programs, improve the quality of care, and promote patient recovery.

BACKGROUND: Nurse-preceptors regularly struggle to evaluate students\' readiness to take care of patients unsupervised, even with sophisticated workplace-based assessment tools. Preceptors\' gut feelings are not always captured well, but are critical for judgement of readiness for learner entrustment with care tasks. Studies in medical education report features that clinicians consider important when trusting students with clinical responsibilities that might also apply in nursing.
OBJECTIVE: To unravel preceptors\' considerations when entrusting professional activities to postgraduate nursing students. The findings may contribute to the improvement of workplace-based assessments and the training of preceptors.
METHODS: Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with sixteen nurse-preceptors from three postgraduate nursing specialisations in Dutch hospitals.
RESULTS: Three themes emerged: CONCLUSIONS: For preceptors of postgraduate nursing students, entrustment requires more than merely insight into objectively measurable competencies. Entrusting is accompanied by subjectivity related to what preceptors expected of students. These expectations are in line with suggested factors in the literature-capability, integrity, reliability, agency, and humility-considered before entrusting students with clinical responsibilities identified in medical training. Entrusting is also accompanied by what preceptors realise about their own role in entrustment decisions. Combining different information sources made assessment more transparent and the implicit more explicit.

UNASSIGNED: Even before COVID-19, enrolments in online postgraduate nursing and midwifery courses were growing globally. Teaching into planned online courses requires pedagogical considerations unique to the context.
UNASSIGNED: The objective of this descriptive mixed methods study was to understand the experiences and needs of Australian online educators who taught into planned online postgraduate nursing or midwifery courses.
UNASSIGNED: A 55-item online survey captured the experiences and needs of participants. This paper reports on the analysis of participants\' qualitative responses in this survey, analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Forty-nine postgraduate educators participated in this study.
UNASSIGNED: Five core themes were identified: time is precious; redefining the educator role; understanding the pedagogical shift; online and alone; and learning to teach online. Many educators report lacking the skills and confidence to deliver high-quality education to postgraduate students through their fingertips.
UNASSIGNED: This research highlighted that online educators need support through resources, education, and professional development.

Healthcare has become highly specialized. Specialists, in medicine as well as in nursing, determine much of the high quality of current health care. But healthcare has also become increasingly fragmented, with professionals trained in separate postgraduate silos, with boundaries often difficult to cross. While a century ago, generalists dominated patient care provision, now specialists prevail and risk becoming alienated from each other, losing the ability to adapt to neighboring professional domains. Current health care requires a flexible workforce, ready to serve in multiple contexts, as the COVID-19 crisis has shown.The new concept of transdisciplinary entrustable professional activities, EPAs applicable in more than one specialty, was recently conceived to enhance collaboration and transfer between educational programs in postgraduate nursing in the Netherlands.In this paper, we reflect on our experiences so far, and on practical and conceptual issues concerning transdisciplinary EPAs, such as: who should define, train, assess, and register transdisciplinary EPAs? How can different prior education prepare for similar EPAs? And how do transdisciplinary EPAs affect professional identity?We believe that transdisciplinary EPAs can contribute to creating more flexible curricula and hence to a more coherent, collaborative healthcare workforce, less determined by the boundaries of traditional specialties.