Culture of Care: A Public Health Nursing Student Prevention and Health Promotion Program

Background:  The purpose of this project was to explore outcomes from the integration of a bystander intervention, community health project into a pre-licensure nursing program. The bystander effect is a well- known social phenomena where ambiguity and diffusion of responsibility result in the failure of individuals to assist others in need.  Due to the growing concern that bad things were happening to college students that could have easily been prevented, a campus-wide project called “Culture of Care” was created to promote a culture of awareness, compassion, and courage at a large public university in the Midwestern United States.

Methods:  All BSN students enrolled in a required Healthy Populations community health clinical course (N=60) received a 4-hour training on bystander intervention. Students were instructed to spend a minimum of 6 hours engaging in activities that promoted the four Culture of Care focus areas: sexual well-being, mental health, alcohol & drug awareness, and respect over the course of the semester. Data were collected from clinical logs, class discussion, and reflective journals. 

Results:Initial data analysis revealed student engagement in caring occasions while gaining skills as educators, leaders, and activists.

Conclusions:This service learning project gave novice nurses an opportunity to cultivate professional skills and caring attitudes while functioning in a fairly independent manner. Future research is needed to determine if learning to act when things are not right in a community setting will transfer to the acute care setting where all team members are expected to be able to say “stop the line”.  

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Learning Areas:

Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education
Public health or related nursing
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Discuss how bystander intervention can be used to improve community safety. Describe how bystander intervention training can help promote professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes development in pre-licensure nursing students.

Keyword(s): Health Promotion and Education, Evidence-Based Practice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the principal or co-principal of multiple research studies focusing on best evidenced-based practice in nursing education. I was the principal faculty of the entry level baccalaureate nursing clinical course that introduced 'Culture of Care - Bystander Intervention' into our curriculum. I participated in training on bystander intervention. I have been teaching community health nursing clinical for the past 10 years. I recently completed my doctoral program in human development/education psychology.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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