Nursing informatics and undergraduate nursing curricula: A scoping review protocol

Aim: This scoping review aims to review contemporary published literature on Nursing Informatics education in undergraduate nursing education. 

Introduction: Nursing is the largest workforce in health care and nurses are increasingly required to work with digital information systems. The need for nurses to understand and embrace information technology is closely linked with the ability to function in the contemporary healthcare workplace. However, despite the early adoption of Nursing Informatics in Australia in the 1980 s, there remain barriers to Nursing Informatics engagement and proficiency, including poor computer literacy, limited professional development and a lack of undergraduate informatics education. 

Design: This scoping review will be developed in adherence with the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: Scoping Reviews and the PRISMA-ScR Checklist. 

Methods: To be included in this scoping review, papers need to include Nursing Informatics education for undergraduate nursing students in a Bachelor of Nursing program. Undergraduate nursing students are defined as individuals enrolled in a recognised nursing program leading to registration as a Nurse. To meet the requirements for registration as a Registered Nurse, in Australia, individuals are required to complete a Bachelor of Nursing program at a university (Australian Qualifications Framework Level 7) For the purpose of this scoping review, undergraduate nursing students are defined as those individuals undertaking a three year Bachelor of Nursing program at a university. Equivalent international definitions will be also used in the scoping review procedure. Sources of information will be included if they were published between 2015 and 2022 and describe curriculum recommendations (including barriers to implementing Nursing Informatics education). The purpose of the identified timespan is to reflect the rapidly evolving nature of health informatics and digital technologies. The requirement for curriculum recommendations is to reflect the purpose of the scoping review as the basis for a Delphi study, where Nursing Informatics and its integration into Bachelor of Nursing curricula will be explored and described in collaboration with domain experts. 

Ethics and dissemination: Ethics approval has been obtained for this scoping review (Project ID: 2156) from the Flinders University's Human Research Ethics Committee and has been determined to be low risk.