Forest-based interventions are a promising alternative therapy for enhancing mental health. The current study investigated the effects of forest therapy on anxiety, depression, and negative and positive mental condition through a meta-analysis of recent randomized controlled trials, using the PRISMA guideline. Of 825 articles retrieved from databases including PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane, and PsycINFO, 6 met the inclusion criteria. The results of this study showed that forest-based interventions improved the mental health of participants in the intervention groups when compared to those in the control groups. Thirty-four outcome variables were analyzed from six studies. The overall effect size of the forest therapy programs was 1.25 (95% CI = 0.93–1.57, p < 0.001), which was large and statistically significant. These findings imply that forest-based interventions can improve mental health as a nonpharmacological intervention. This study is significant in that it is a meta-analysis of mental health that included only high-quality domestic and international RCTs. In future studies, more RCTs related to various forest interventions and studies involving many participants should be undertaken, which will complement heterogeneity in future meta-analysis studies.

Nursing education using mobile devices is emerging as a new educational method showing higher learning achievement than traditional nursing education. This study aimed to develop a game-based mobile application and evaluate nursing students' learning achievement and experiences using a mixed-methods design. The application was developed into eight games on different nursing skills. Thirty nursing students were instructed to use the application for a week in the one-group pretest-posttest study design. Their pretest and posttest knowledge, postlearning efficiency, satisfaction, and convenience were evaluated. The focus group interviews were conducted by dividing 15 students into three groups, and their experience of the application was analyzed using a qualitative thematic analysis. The nursing students' knowledge significantly improved after using the application (t = 4.71, P < .001). The efficiency was the number of days (3.3 ± 2.0), the number of use per login (5.3 ± 4.0), and the number of successes per login (2.7 ± 2.9). Satisfaction and convenience scores were 4.9 ± 1.3 and 4.7 ± 1.2 out of 7. In the thematic analysis, themes through which the students were motivated, made learning plans, and received feedback by efficient game-based interactive educational content were drawn. Game-based mobile nursing education could be an adjunct to traditional clinical education strategies and induce a positive learning effect.

This study aimed to develop and establish psychometric properties of the End-of-Life Nursing Competency Scale for Clinical Nurses. The initial items were derived from an in-depth literature review and field interviews. The content validation of these items was assessed over three rounds by experts in end-of-life nursing care. The study included 437 clinical nurses from four hospitals in S, E, and D cities in South Korea. The final exploratory factor analysis resulted in a scale consisting of 21 items with the following five factors that explained 68.44% of the total variance: Physical care—imminent end-of-life, legal and administrative processes, psychological care—patient and family, psychological care—nurses’ self, and ethical nursing. The final model with these five subscales was validated through confirmatory factor analysis. Both item convergent-discriminant validity and known-group validity, which compared two groups based on clinical experience (p < 0.008) and working department (p < 0.008), were satisfactory. The internal consistency, as measured by Cronbach’s α, ranged from 0.62 to 0.89 for the subscales and was 0.91 for the total scale. This scale has been validated as a reliable and effective instrument for clinical nurses to self-assess their end-of-life nursing competencies in a clinical setting.

Purpose: Nursing clinical practice education is transforming with the advent of mobile education and the unique experiences it offers in caring for virtual patients. For this innovative approach, this study aims to evaluate the efficacy of mobile-based virtual women’s breast cancer nursing simulation training content on nursing students’ confidence, satisfaction, and learning flow. It also examines the nursing students’ virtual patient care experiences.Methods: A mixed methods approach using a convergent design was employed to examine students’ cancer care confidence and satisfaction, learning flow, and learning experiences. Quantitative data through online questionnaires and qualitative data through focus group interviews were collected, merged, and analyzed.Results: This study developed a virtual nursing training module aimed at caring for women with breast cancer, a novel approach to facilitate mobile-based simulation training for nursing students. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, a chi-squared test, Fisher’s exact test, t-test for participant homogeneity (experimental: 20, control: 20), independent t-test, and paired t-test. Satisfaction (t=3.53, p=.001) and confidence (t=4.07, p=.001), as well as flow (t=3.78, p=.001), significantly improved in the experimental group compared to the control group. Two core themes and five sub-themes were derived from the experimental group’s experiences acquired by caring for women with breast cancer virtually, including that the students “Virtually cared for breast cancer patients, learning as if real.”Conclusion: The mobile-based virtual nursing simulation training content allowed nursing students to upgrade their comprehensive nursing care skills by experiencing a fun and practical environment made possible by a new learning method.