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Aim. This paper is a report of a new approach to reflection in nursing and demonstrates its positive outcomes for student learning in clinical practice. Background. Reflection is a popular educational tool in nursing and most traditional reflective models take an incident as the starting point. We have developed a new approach that focuses on subjective thoughts and feelings. We were inspired by the work of Peshkin and his focus on the 'subjective I'. For this reason, we have termed this new way of reflecting 'The Peshkin Approach'. Data sources. Eight nursing students kept a reflective diary during a 6-week clinical placement in 2008. The focus was on recording their thoughts and feelings. They analysed the diary entries using a systematic approach. The aim was to identify aspects of their subjectivity influencing them in clinical practice. Discussion. Through analysis of journal entries, the students became aware of the subjective I's that were influencing their experiences. They found the advantages of the approach to be twofold: increased self-awareness and enhanced learning. Conclusion. Maintaining a reflective journal that focuses on subjectivity can enhance the clinical experiences of nursing students. We advocate this new approach as complementary to more traditional forms of reflection and argue for its incorporation into nurse education programmes. In comparison to traditional reflective models that we have used, the Peshkin Approach to Reflection has significant advantages in terms of promoting student learning in clinical practice. We hope the approach can be critiqued and developed further by those interested in enhancing nurse education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This paper is a discussion of the use of unstructured diaries and their benefits and limitations as primary research data in a study of family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease. Background. Caregivers' diaries have rarely been used to study family caregivers' subjective knowledge of life with a family member with Alzheimer's disease. Method. Family caregivers wrote unstructured diaries for 2 weeks during the period 2002-2004, starting within 6 months after the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in a family member. The family caregivers (n = 83) were voluntary participants in an ongoing intervention study (patients n = 241 and caregivers n = 241). The diaries were analysed using content analysis. Findings. The diary data were categorized into the following four different types: meagre, reporting, descriptive and reflective. They described the family caregivers' experiential world and the changes taking place in it. Family caregivers found diarywriting a therapeutic and pleasant experience. The use of written diaries involves some limitations concerning high dependency on writers, and data solely in written form. An effort to confirm the quality of data should be made by personal contacts. Conclusion. Diaries can be used as a primary method of data collection in nursing research, as they produce subjective knowledge of the experiences, emotions and meanings associated with caregiving. Their use can result in a high level of motivation, and ability to reflect on life promotes successful writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIM: This paper explores the need for and nature of personal narratives and their relevance to nursing practice. It proposes that the co-creative aesthetic process can be used to understand and co-create personal narratives through an emphasis on self-defining memories and metaphor. BACKGROUND: Many authors in nursing and other human sciences have recognized the need for and importance of personal narrative, its relationship to aesthetic knowing and its value in qualitative research and in practice. The role of memory and metaphor in the creation of meaning in personal narratives, however, has not been sufficiently explored in nursing literature. DISCUSSION: The nature of personal narrative is explored, focusing on the way meaning is created from self-defining memories using metaphor. Then, the importance of personal narratives in nursing practice is considered, followed by discussion about how meaning in personal narratives may be co-created between clients and nurses using an aesthetic process developed by the author. CONCLUSION: The co-creative aesthetic process is an example of nursing as art and can be used to co-create personal narratives in practice. The experience of co-creating a self story with a nurse can be healing, as the self story is heard by a caring person, memories are understood in new ways, and the self story is both confirmed and recreated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. In the early 1980s there emerged in nursing a self-conscious and well-articulated concern to articulate nursing's contribution to patient care. This has fostered the production of a large volume of practice narratives that today form the basis of professional self-understanding. First-person practice narratives are now widely used as the evidence base for nursing expertise, not only in their natural home, the world of interpretative research, but also in the bureaucratic-judicial domain of professional regulation, health care organizations, trades unions and professional associations. Aim. The aim of this paper is to question the use of individual narrative accounts of nursing practice as evidence of nursing expertise. Method. We examine the model, method, and continuing consequences of these discursive formations of practice. First, we present a methodological discussion of how personal narratives are produced by the interplay between discourse and subjectivity. Second, we explore clinical narratives of expertise in the work of Patricia Benner and others to uncover the common template for contemporary narrative. Discussion. Narrative production in nursing has led to particular constructions, rather than free representations of practice. It is these particular constructions that we call into question. Rather than viewing these narratives as revelatory of nursing practice, we argue that they place a 'spotlight' on the individual actor - the nurse - with an absence of structural practice context. Conclusion. We make the case that treatment of these narratives as individual evidence of expertise fundamentally misunderstands their function and purpose, and reduces the constitution of nursing expertise to the performance of a palatable and highly desirable discourse for a nursing audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a stage-by-stage framework for the analysis of data obtained from qualitative semistructured diaries. As the framework for analysis was developed, it became apparent that the methodological problem of verifying the initial analysis, required serious consideration. The research literature available was found simply to identify the difficulty, but offered no solutions. Recognizing that trustworthiness is a hallmark of qualitative research, a data analysis verification tool (DAViT) was designed. This proved to be extremely effective in enhancing the trustworthiness of a qualitative study in a number of ways. The analysis framework and verification tool together offers an eclectic approach for qualitative diary data analysis. It is further advocated that they are amenable to the analysis and verification of qualitative data obtained from semistructured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]