Prioritizing the fundamentals of care within the prelicensure nursing curriculum

Background: Little empirical research exists on how best to teach fundamentals of care to prelicensure nursing students. This pilot aims to develop this evidence base.

Method: A 6-week intervention embedded fundamentals of care explicitly, focusing on the integrated nature of such care, within a first-year prelicensure nursing curriculum at an Australian university. The intervention involved two components: (a) using the fundamentals of care framework to structure and guide teaching and shape students’ conceptual understanding of the fundamentals of care, and (b) restructuring clinical skills sessions to reinforce this conceptual understanding.

Results: Preliminary observations show that the intervention offers a practical and effective way to teach the fundamentals of care to prelicensure students, helping them to see the value of the fundamentals of care and to provide quality care for patients’ fundamental needs.

Conclusion: Explicitly embedding the fundamentals of care within accredited nursing curricula is feasible and has observable, positive effects.