Resources Required to Develop the Nurse–Person Relationship During an Entry-to-Practice Nursing Program: A Structured Narrative Review

Abstract

Purpose: The nurse–person relationship is at the heart of the nursing discipline, nursing practice, and nursing education. While various aspects of this phenomenon are broached in different articles, none of these works focus on teaching the development of such a comprehensive relationship during an entry-to-practice nursing program, which has the effect of masking its complex nature. Guided by the competency-based approach described by Tardif (2016), this structured narrative review seeks to identify the resources acquired during an entry-to-practice a nursing program for developing and upholding the nurse–person relationship.

Method: With help from a librarian specialized in health sciences, a search of the literature was conducted in CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Web of Sciences. A total of 1,163 articles were found, and 18 recent articles (2010–2023) were selected. A thematic analysis was then performed by using Tardif’s competency-based approach framework (2006).

Results: The following two themes were identified: a) internal resources that students can incorporate, among them empathy, compassion, communication, and true respect; b) external resources that are found in students’ environments and that support them, including confidence and role models.

Conclusion: Without presuming to have revealed all the resources necessary for nurse–person relationships, this structured narrative review allows for synthesizing existing knowledge of the resources most often cited in scientific works. Persons in charge of an entry-to-practice nursing program will be able to use the results of this structured narrative review to adapt their teachings. These results will also likely prove useful to research teams seeking avenues for future research on this topic.