Nursing curriculum: content needed for home health nursing care

When nursing education changed from apprenticeship training to college education, many nurses experienced a phenomenon termed "reality shock" because their education had not prepared them to work in hospitals. Changes in the health care system sent patients home to recover from major surgeries and complex medical problems. Therefore, much of nursing care has moved from the acute care setting to the home. Caring for these clients in the home requires new competencies as well as established nursing skills. The problem of this research was to determine what curriculum content was needed to prepare nurses for their roles in home health care.

The purposes of this study were : (1) to identify curriculum content needed to prepare nurses for home health care and (2) to make recommendations for the needed curriculum changes to prepare nurses for practice in the home setting. The research questions were:(1) Do deans of baccalaureate schools of nursing and nursing directors of home health care agencies concur with the current health care literature regarding curriculum content needed to prepare graduates to function in the home setting? and (2) Is there congruence between the perceptions of deans of baccalaureate schools of nursing and nursing directors of home health care agencies regarding curriculum content needed to prepare graduates to fianction in home health care?