The process of globalization has increased changes that go beyond geographical barriers, causing political, cultural and economic changes. That, in turn, has led to a reform in university education polices, where the backbone of the internationalization of knowledge acquires prominence and appears to respond to this need as a bridge to provide access to an expanded vision of different contexts. For Knight(1) “internationalization is one of the major forces that has impacted and structured higher education to meet the challenges of the twenty - first century.”
Considered as multidimensional process, internationalization involves an important cultural competence that includes a two-way exchange of scientific and cultural learning among universities. Besides, it must assume a sociopolitical role with an international cooperation perspective towards mutual assistance between countries. In fact, in its 2009 World Conference on Higher Education (CMES) UNESCO emphasizes “the social responsibility of higher education institutions to contribute to increased learning based on the transfer of knowledge across borders, especially to developing countries.” In 2011, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) considered that international mobility is a phenomenon that rescues the sense of co-working and mutual benefit.
Nursing also supports this process. Thus, for many years ALADEFE (Latin American Association of Schools and Colleges of Nursing) promotes this transcultural nursing, and in September 2015, at the last conference, it reinforced the importance of promoting the educational, scientific, political, social and cultural exchange between universities as a bridge to the quality of training in nursing.
In the European context, a reform has also recently taken place in the European Higher Education Area (EESS), with a focus on academic mobility, promotion of multicentric work and teaching and/or academic innovation. For Freire(2) “Knowing what happens in other countries is today an essential obligation, even more in the surrounding countries. International comparisons provide an excellent means of analyzing the reality from another perspective, broadening of horizons and learning from seeing how different combinations of resources, organizational schemes and standards work in other countries. To some extent, what happens in another country can be considered a valuable – and free – natural experiment from which we can draw conclusions.”
From this perspective, the nursing process appears as an interesting common resource of communication between countries. We share our own language and working methodology, and from the teaching practice, the need for mainstreaming this process is detected in training both at undergraduate and graduate levels. There is a need to promote interaction between teaching and service, between research groups and clinical practice, in addition to seeking the experience of other centers and/or institutions.
The nursing process directly affects the continuity of care, which in turn is an important dimension of the quality of care and is directly related to improving patient safety, and as a result of all, leading to a higher degree of patient satisfaction. Nursing care has a direct relationship with patient satisfaction and therefore has become a predictor in care quality (3), while care research is its essential weapon. Nursing research networks, as we discussed in a previous editorial of this magazine, will be an important tool, as EnfAméricas Network, which adds more than 3,000 nurses from Latin America(4).
Since standardized nursing languages (SNL) started not so long ago, they have been undergoing an evolution and transformation: first the foundations were laid, then came the implementation and computerization, and the next step has been – up to now – research, all with the goal set in the settlement of the nursing discipline and its contribution to improving the quality of care to the population.
Many specific official Master degrees in nursing, research lines and doctoral thesis on the methodology of the nursing work, such as the nursing process, have appeared.
In this context, so far, there was no work in the market dedicated specifically to research in nursing languages. Soon a work by Elsevier entitled: “Research Methodology and Nursing Languages”(5) will hit the market. As editorial advisers, we understood that it was first necessary to describe the current state of the issue and then mark the following specific research action guidelines, so that any nurse who wants to start a project finds the right help and abundant support literature.
The piece of work has been coordinated between the School of Nursing at the San Antonio Catholic University of Murcia (Spain) and the Scientific Society AENTDE (Spanish Association of Nomenclature, Taxonomy and Nursing Diagnosis), and was born with international and unifying vocation. Participants include more than 40 authors from the United States, the Netherlands, Brazil and Spain, both in the field of teaching and research as assistance or management. Highlighted authors from the Center for Nursing Classifications and Clinical Effectiveness at the University of Iowa (USA) are E. Swanson or S. Moorhead (University of Iowa), from NANDA-I, Maria Müller - Staub, and current and past members of AENTDE, starting with its founder. In Brazil the phenomenon is expanding, and we have two of the best researchers: Marcos Vinicios Lopes (Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC)/Fortaleza), and Gracielle Linch (Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA)/Porto Alegre).
To sum up, nursing has a significant role in the assistance process of care both at implementation and management levels, and we are now optimistic because we are developing tools that improve the evidence of health outcomes on assistance quality globally. We should follow this path.
REFERÊNCIAS
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1Knight J. Internationalization: key concepts and elements. In: Raabe J, editor. Internationalization of European higher education. Berlim: Raabe Academic Publishers; 2010.
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2Freire JM. El Sistema Nacional de Salud español en perspectiva comparada europea: diferencias, similitudes, retos y opciones. Claridad. 2006 [citado 2016 mar 20];(7):31-45. Disponível em: http://portal.ugt.org/claridad/numero7/freire.pdf
» http://portal.ugt.org/claridad/numero7/freire.pdf -
3Wagner D, Bear M. Patient satisfaction with nursing care: a concept analysis within a nursing framework. J Adv Nurs. 2009;65(3):692-701.
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4Rocha CMF, Cassiani SHB. Las redes de enfermería: estrategias para el fortalecimiento de la investigación y de la extensión. Rev Gaúcha Enferm. 2015 jun;36(2):12-3.
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5Echevarría P, editor. Investigación en metodología y lenguajes enfermeros. Barcelona: Elsevier; 2016.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
2016
