Student and expert preference intersections informing undergraduate nursing microbiology curriculum

Abstract

Education of nursing students is a serious undertaking, with impacts on the profession and patient care. Foundational microbiology curriculum may differ between programs, with no consistency in objectives. An environmental scan of publicly available data from the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing’s list of accredited nursing schools demonstrated that approximately two thirds of programs offered a standalone microbiology course. A web-based survey of three groups (nursing students, microbiology content experts, and practicing healthcare professionals) demonstrated several highly rated microbiology topics and identified areas for which the perceived importance and preferred depth of understanding differed between groups. This small study provides insight into which topics to emphasize and de-emphasize in the nursing microbiology curriculum.