title: Therapeutic letters in undergraduate nursing education: Ideas for clinical nurse educators.
abstract: Therapeutic letter writing (TLW) is a well-known intervention in family nursing practice but it has been overlooked as a strategy in nursing education to promote relationship-building. This article reviews what is known about TLW and presents what was learned by adding a TLW assignment to undergraduate clinical nursing courses. This paper adds to the evidence supporting TLW as an effective clinical teaching strategy to promote students relational skills and to recognize patients' strengths. TLW has benefits for students, patients and faculty.
authors.affiliation: Saint Louis University, School of Nursing, 3525 Caroline Mall, St. Louis, MO 63104-1099, USA. pfreed@slu.edu
authors.forename: Patricia E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Freed
authors.forename: Dorcas E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: McLaughlin
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: SmithBattle
authors.forename: Sheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leander
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Westhus
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D003479:Curriculum; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D005181:Faculty, Nursing; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013663:Teaching