Fundamentals of care in pre-registration nursing curricula: Results of a national survey

The Fundamentals of Care is a conceptual framework, grounded on the nurse establishing a relationship with the patient to enable the integration of physical, psychological, and relational aspects of nursing to deliver essential patient care. There is an imperative on schools of nursing to teach and assess nursing students to achieve clinical competency. The Nursing Council of New Zealand provide schools of nursing with an educational framework to guide how nursing students are educated. However, curricular content specific to fundamentals of care (FoC) is minimally researched, making areas of strength or gaps in curricula unclear. This paper provides a national overview of undergraduate pre-registration nursing curricula in Aotearoa New Zealand exploring what and how schools of nursing teach and assess FoC. This was achieved using a cross-sectional descriptive survey. Survey responses were received from 17 course coordinators and involved completing an online anonymous questionnaire. Data was collected between July 2019 and February 2020 and analysed using descriptive statistics. Data analysis revealed variations in how FoC is taught and suggests that the FoC curriculum is non-standardised. Schools appear to design their own curricula and individually decide the educational approaches they use to teach and assess FoC. Furthermore, while mouth and general skin care are commonly featured across FoC teaching, there was a limited focus on eye and perineal care. This study highlights the variance in how FoC is taught and the non-standardised design approach used by schools of nursing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Knowing this, provides schools of nursing and the Nursing Council of New Zealand with an opportunity to discuss and potentially develop a national evidenced-based FoC education strategy. Collaborating with international nursing councils could enhance the development of such a strategy.