How valuable is an international cultural visit?

The influence of international mobility programmes on nursing students' personal and professional development

“…Nursing students who had already experienced studying abroad agreed more strongly that international exchange has an impact on upgrading one's professional skills, especially in the field of intercultural nursing care. Although the curricula of most undergraduate nursing programmes address cultural topics and their relationship with patient care (Edmonds, 2010), several authors emphasise that registered nurses are still not sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of patients from different cultural backgrounds (Gower, et al, 2017;Guedes et al, 2018;Southgate & Wrench, 2020). At present, due to the growing ethnic diversity of people requiring nursing care, nursing students need multicultural experiences, and international mobility programmes can provide for this need.…”

“…However, over the past decade, Slovenia, as an EU member state, has also become an increasingly attractive destination for migrants (European Migration Network, 2019). Several authors (Brown, et al, 2016;Gower, et al, 2017;Southgate & Wrench, 2020) note that globalisation and increasing levels of migration make it necessary to increase nursing students' sensibility to the issues of cultural diversity and importance of intercultural nursing care, and international mobility seems to be an appropriate strategy to this end. In fact, the Slovene students who had taken part in mobility exchange programmes agreed more strongly that such an experience improves nursing students' understanding of intercultural competencies.…”