Projects

Funded by

Official College of Nursing of Barcelona (COIB)

Justification

Around the globe, increased life expectancy and unhealthy behaviour are associated with an increase in preventable chronic diseases. Efforts to address these challenges involve strategies that improve patient activation (PA), which encompasses people's knowledge, skills and confidence in managing their own health and medical care. From here, health coaching was born, defined as an evidence-based practice that applies a holistic, patient-centred approach in which citizens, coached by a professional: outline their own health-related objectives; experience self-discovery to find out what inspires them; practice active learning combined with content-based education and participate in the decision-making process in order to meet their initial objectives.

Objectives

1. To develop a methodology that helps increase activation in people with health conditions, as well as their families and/or unqualified carers.
2. To test the efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of methodologies that increase the activation among the elderly, their families and/or unqualified carers.
3. Scientific and social dissemination on the need for activation among the elderly, their families and/or unskilled carers 

Members of the SGR research group:

• Dr. Laia Wennberg: lwennberg@uic.es
• Dr. Cibeles Moreno: cibelesmoreno@uic.es
• Dr. Esteve Llargués: ellargues@uic.es 
• Dr. Montse Virumbrales: montsev@uic.es
• Dr. Albert Gallart: agallart@uic.es
• Other members of the research team: Blanca Goñi, Dr Iris Crespo.

• DECIDE Chair

Funded by:

• Boehringer Ingelheim

Justification:

It is the first university-corporate chair focused on nursing leadership and training future professionals so they can improve the effectiveness of treatment for patients with chronic conditions.  It will also centre on clinical safety by both the nurses, the patients themselves and their carers.

It is undeniable that chronic diseases are having an ever-increasing impact on our society, partly due to the increase in life expectancy and the adoption of modern lifestyles in developed countries.  One of the main strategies for tackling chronic conditions is training and educating patients in self-care, along with monitoring clinical safety.  Nurses play a fundamental role in this strategy. This chair aims to provide future nurses and healthcare professionals with the knowledge they need to train patients, both in terms of health education and managing their own treatment regime.

Objective

To generate knowledge in the field of nursing leadership, centred around educating healthcare professionals and clinical safety for both professionals and patients.

Directed by:

• Dr. Encarna Rodríguez: erodriguez@uic.es
• Dr. Mireia Llauradó: mllaurados@uic.es 
• Dr. Pilar Fuster:  pfuster@uic.es

Members of the SGR research team:

• Dr Marian de Juan
• Dr Marisa Martín
• Dr Laia Wennberg
• Dr Jordi Castillo
• Dr Albert Gallart
• Ms. Cristina Alfonso

Funded by:

• “La Caixa” Foundation 2016-2017, 2018-2019
• Godó Foundation 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021

Justification:

It is focused on health education activities for people with unfavourable health conditions, their families and/or carers and is open to the whole community.

The AIDIR project at the Pere Virgili Healthcare Park (PSPV), created by the Department of Nursing at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) in 2014, is focused on treatment education and health promotion activities, aimed mainly at older people with complex chronic conditions at the PSPV.

The Nursing Care Teaching and Research Unit was created in 2016 and is located in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella neighbourhood, in partnership with the La Esperanza Foundation and the Roure Foundation.

Ciutat Vella is home to around 6.2% of the total population of Barcelona.  It has the second highest level of unemployment (39.2%) in the city.  Almost half the population (45.1%) is foreign. This amalgamation of factors has generated social, economic and health inequalities.  It is a vulnerable population given the social isolation caused by cultural diversity, and, often, poor living conditions and poverty. In addition, language barriers and discrimination can hinder communication with public services.

Unfortunately, this leads to the conclusion that the population of Ciutat Vella is lacking protection and suffering from health inequalities. Nurses could help improve these health inequalities by strengthening the local population’s autonomy and self-care habits.

Objectives:

The strategic objectives of AIDIR are:

1. To implement health coaching techniques to improve health education (literacy), autonomy and self-care in people, families and groups within the community
2. To empower nursing students, promoting leadership and educational competences in healthcare and nursing that will benefit society
3. Help improve re-integration into society of less-fortunate people/families at risk of social exclusion, creating active learning opportunities in terms of physical and emotional health, co-existence and professional healthcare
4. To carry out research into health promotion and self-care among the population, as well as in the teaching regarding leadership in nursing care.

• Principal investigator: Dr Albert Gallart: agallart@uic.es
• Principal coordinator AIDIR Pere Virgili: Dr Mª Ángeles de Juan: mdejuan@uic.es
• Principal coordinator AIDIR Ciutat Vella: Dr Albert Gallart
• Members of the SGR research team: Dr Pilar Fuster, Dr Jordi Castillo, Dr Montserrat Guillaumet and Dr Bilkis Visandjee. Other researchers: Lorena Moya, Ana M. Yuste.

Justification:

Society and healthcare experts are calling for nursing to take on a more decisive role, as they believe this could improve the efficiency of healthcare. Universities must respond to these social needs by giving teaching staff the resources they need to produce students capable of rejuvenating and improving society.

Objective:

This research aims to assess whether academic university teaching, with methodologies and assessment systems that place special emphasis on the numerous components of nursing leadership, can achieve higher leadership scores on the SALI scale, compared to a control group that receives traditional university teaching methods.

The hope is to prove that students’ leadership increases when they work on their teamwork, decision-making and communication skills, among others.

• Principal investigator: Dr Albert Gallart: agallart@uic.es
• Coordinators: Dr Albert Gallart, Dr Encarna Rodríguez, Dr M Luisa Martín
• Members of the SGR research team: Dr Pilar Fuster, Dr Marian de Juan, Dr Mireia Llauradó, Dr Laia Wennberg and Dr Jordi Castillo

A teaching innovation sub-project has been outlined within this line of research:

• Funded by: Teaching Innovation Classroom, UIC Barcelona and the Puig Foundation
• Justification

In order to face these new social healthcare challenges, academic institutions must be able to create learning opportunities for students to acquire the skills they need to address them. This acquisition of skills often requires innovative teaching methods. One of the proposed methods is student-led conferences.  It would offer numerous benefits, including a bolstering the leadership skills of the students who take part in this activity.

• Objectives

General:

1. To improve leadership skills for those bachelor’s degree students that take part in the activity and encourage them to be involved in the learning process.

Specific:

1. To measure the level of improvement in the leadership skills of the students organising the scientific event.
2. To assess to what extent these students have acquired written and oral communication skills.
3. To measure the level of satisfaction with the methodology used to teach students and participants at the scientific event.

Principal investigator: Dr Mª Ángeles de Juan

Members of the SGR research team: Dr M Luisa Martín, Dr Albert Gallart, Dr Pilar Fuster, Dr Encarna Rodríguez, Dr Laia Wennberg, Dr Mireia Llauradó and Dr Marian Cerezuela.

Justification:

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a cause for concern in healthcare due to its prevalence and low survival rate.  The SCA survival rate varies greatly (around 15-25% both in and outside hospital). Improving these odds depends on the efficiency and speed of the people responsible for administering Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Therefore, international institutions constantly highlight basic life support (BLS) and defibrillator (AED) education and teaching, and recommend that they be accessible and readily available to the entire population.

Over the past few years, over 2,000 students have graduated from bachelor’s degree programmes at UIC Barcelona, who have also shed light on the science behind this discipline by researching various aspects.  Evidently, online training in BLS and AED offers similar or better results than traditional teaching methods, and even at a lower cost.  It has also been shown that in order to guarantee successful CPR, students must have scored at least a 7 in skills and knowledge. We have also been able to prove, as other authors have, that one of the main concerns with CPR is that the knowledge and skills obtained from training wane after 3-6 months, despite the fact that officially in Spain, the need to take refresher courses can vary between one, two and three years depending on the autonomous community.

Given that there is no ideal refresher training in this field, and with the aim of increasing patient survival rates following a cardiac arrest, our study aims to shed light on the scarce literature surrounding the format of BLS-AED refresher training and its periodicity.

Objectives

General:

1. To compare whether online BLS and AED refresher training courses can prolong university students’ knowledge and skills for 12 months, and whether they are better or as good as official face-to-face refresher courses.

Specific:

1. To compare the BLS and AED skills acquired by students that have taken an accredited training course, depending on the degree programme they have studied.
2. To observe the optimum frequency for refresher training courses.
3. To observe students that need to extend their training following the initial course.
4. To analyse what happens to the knowledge and skills of students who need extra preliminary training.

1. To compare skill retention for BLS and AED between different university degree programmes.
2. To verify the degree of satisfaction and how useful it is in carrying out traditional or virtual refresher training courses.
3. To verify the average length of online refresher training.
4. To reduced cost of online training in relation to traditional refresher training courses.

Principal investigator: Dr Jordi Castillo:  jcastillo@uic.es 

Members of the SGR research team: Dr Encarna Rodríguez, Dr Albert Gallart. Other researchers: Dr Joan Bosch, Dr Dani Arbonés

Funded by:

Official College of Nursing of Barcelona (COIB)

Justification:

In recent years, due to the prevailing biomedical model, scientific progress and the use of new technologies, a need has arisen in the health field to revive the humanistic value of caring for people.

For this reason, a humanisation policy has been introduced to nursing that promotes and safeguards dignity for both patients and professionals.

Objectives:

1. To develop a teaching methodology that helps align nursing professionals’ attitudes and behaviour with humanised care.
2. To design and validate a tool to measure the perception of humanised care, from the perspective of patients and nursing professionals.
3. To raise awareness throughout society of the need for dignified treatment of patients, their families and professional teams.

Team

Principal investigator: Dr M. Luisa Martín: marisamf@uic.es 

Members of the SGR research team:

Dr Mª Ángeles de Juan, Dr Mireia Llauradó, Dr Laia Wennberg and Dr Encarnación Rodríguez