Nursing students' perspectives of dance movement therapy to learn relational skills: A qualitative description study

Background: Nursing students are expected to develop communication and relational skills during their undergraduate education, and the literature on art-based methods for teaching these skills is growing. Art-based education seems to be a promising method for teaching relational skills, especially embodied and performing arts. Dance Movement Therapy has been used previously to learn relational skills, but never in undergraduate nursing students. Aim: To describe how first-year undergraduate nursing students experienced the learning of communication and relational skills through a Dance Movement Therapy workshop. Settings & participants: First-year undergraduate nursing students who completed a two-session Dance Movement Therapy workshop. Design & methods: This study utilised a Qualitative Description design. Data were gathered from students’ reflective journals (n = 226 journals, 113 students) and analysed with a thematic analysis approach. Results: Three themes were identified: learning happens through the experience of competences, learning happens through corporeality, and learning takes time. The first theme describes how students experienced theoretical concepts through workshop games. “Learning happens through corporeality” focuses on the role of the body during Dance Movement Therapy games as a medium for learning. “Learning takes time” describes students’ evolution during the workshop, both within and between sessions, and the graduality of comprehension and learning. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that Dance Movement Therapy can be an applicable methodology for nursing students to learn communication and relational skills. Most of the relational skills and non-verbal communication components were explored and strengthened during the workshop. Students were also able to create links between theoretical concepts and nursing practice. Nurse educators may want to consider using Dance Movement Therapy to teach communication and relational skills.