Nurse lecturers' experiences of working with people with lived experience: a phenomenological study

Background: Involving people with lived experience in United Kingdom healthcare courses is a government directive and professional body recommendation, yet involvement remains non-standardised with minimal guidance. Previous literature has largely ignored the experiences of Nurse lecturer's in this work, yet they provide vital resources in promoting, sustaining and developing the involvement of people with lived experience.

Aim: To explore adult nurse lecturers' experiences of working with people with lived experience in two higher educational institution settings.

Design: A qualitative descriptive phenomenology study was undertaken.

Setting: This study took place in two universities in the East of England.

Participants: Using purposive sampling nine pre-registration adult nurse lecturers working with people with lived experience were recruited.

Methods: Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using an adaptation of Colaizzi's method.

Results: Three main themes were identified: Filling the gaps; Muddling along; and Challenges and facilitators. These describe the lifeworld of nurse lecturers working with people with lived experience. Nurse lecturers strove to embed people with lived experience into nurse education, which was a challenging process but led to positive outcomes. Nurse lecturers illustrated how working with people with lived experience affected their teaching, professional values and understanding. Findings highlight the need for nurse lecturers to be at the forefront of discussions, emphasising their integral role in ongoing discussions about service user involvement in nurse education.

Conclusion: Pre-registration nursing lecturers include people with lived experience in their courses to expand students' understanding of lived experience. Participating lecturers highlighted a snapshot of their multiple, and often ‘hidden,’ roles when working with people with lived experience. Representations of power, human rights and partnership working illustrate important aspects of this work affecting people with lived experience, students and lecturers. Participants wanted to move from tokenistic inclusion of people with lived experience, to a wider cultural/organisational involvement. The intrinsic value of including people with lived experience in courses for professional practice and organisational values were highlighted. Findings are applicable for those who design and develop healthcare courses and can inform future curriculum development.