Toward the development of a nursing practice for older persons with acute confusional state (ACS)

Surgery unit nurses often deal with older people in an acute confusional state (ACS). To care for them, nurses must resort to different patterns of knowing, including empirical, esthetic, ethical, personal and emancipatory. According to Chinn and Kramer (2008), it is by consciously and deliberately asking themselves critical questions about specific clinical situations that nurses can enhance their knowledge and improve practice. In this regard, narrative pedagogy developed by Diekelmann (2001), which encourages sharing lived experiences and seeking other possibilities for the future, seems a well suited approach. This article presents the theoretical bases of narrative pedagogy and the grounds for an intervention inspired by this approach and intended for nurses who must care for hospitalized older people in an ACS. This innovative pedagogical intervention, which encourages nurses to participate actively in their learning, is consistent with recent empirical works on continuing education of health professionals.