“We are never taught anything about the elderly.” Establishing the gap in elderly health care competencies in nursing education in Uganda
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Date
2022
Authors
Nawagi, Faith
Mukisa, John
Najjuma, Josephine N.
Nabirye, Rose C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMC nursing
Abstract
Nurses contribute the largest portion of Uganda’s health workforce providing care to individuals of all
ages and communities. However, despite the growing number of the elderly population in Uganda with improved life
expectancy, there is hardly any study that has looked at the elderly health care competencies in the nursing training
programs at various levels. This paper provides an overview of the gaps in elderly health care competencies in nursing
education in Uganda. Methods: We conducted a descriptive qualitative cross-sectional study that involved document review, Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with nursing leaders, and Focus Group Discussions ( FGDs) with faculty at all levels of nursing
training and nurses in practice. Data was analyzed using latent and manifest content analysis with Open Code software
4.03. Common categories were identified and incorporated into a matrix to create themes.
Results: Almost all the curricula and minimum standards for training nurses at certificate, diploma, and degree levels
lack a module and nursing competencies on elderly nursing care. This is aggravated by a lack of faculty trained in
elderly health care skills, and a lack of specialized wards for nursing elderly care clinical training among others.
Conclusions: There is hardly any elderly health care training module and elderly nursing competencies at all levels of
nursing training in Uganda.
Description
Keywords
Elderly health care, Training, Uganda, Nursing, Competencies
Citation
Nawagi, F., Mukisa, J., Najjuma, J. N., & Nabirye, R. C. (2022). “We are never taught anything about the elderly.” Establishing the gap in elderly health care competencies in nursing education in Uganda. BMC nursing, 21(1), 1-11.