Nursing student and faculty attitudes about a potential genomics-informed undergraduate curriculum

Abstract

Objectives To explore attitudes about adding genomic content to an undergraduate nursing curriculum. Genomic knowledge is essential to nursing education, but challenges exist for curriculum innovation. Few countries have guiding documents from national nursing organizations on genomic competencies for practice or education. Information on attitudes about genomics may provide guidance for curriculum development. Methods Nineteen undergraduate nursing students and two faculty from a school of nursing with two sites in western Canada participated. Five focus groups and four interviews were conducted using a semi-structured focus group guide. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Coding was inductive. Results Characteristics of participants, eight key themes, and four future focal areas were identified to guide future research and curriculum development. Conclusions Global development of genomics-informed curricula will require a focus on increasing knowledge, defining scope and role, increasing visibility of role models, and preparing to implement precision health.

Leading Canadian Nurses into the Genomic Era of Healthcare

“…With this in mind, leaders can use early adopters to create shifts in acceptance and interest in knowledge integration. Rogers' ( 2003) theory was successfully used in this way to advance nursing practice in genomics (Andrews et al 2014;Dewell et al 2021).…”

“…Role clarity in genomics-informed nursing care was raised as an issue in Canada (Bottorff et al 2005a;Dewell et al 2021) and is identified as a key enabler for professional practice (Tonkin et al 2020a). Role clarity has challenged nurses for decades (Almost 2021).…”

Essential genomic knowledge in graduate nursing practice

“…The lack of faculty confidence in genomic content in this study is a commonly reported barrier to advancing nursing genomic knowledge (Read & Ward, 2018). In a recent qualitative study exploring attitudes regarding adding genomic content to an undergraduate nursing curriculum, faculty and students acknowledged important gaps in understanding genomic constructs and reported that they were not applying information to their current nursing educational setting even when they took a previous genomic course (Dewell et al, 2021). Both faculty and students recognized clinical and didactic opportunities where genomic content could be applied.…”

“…Genetic knowledge among nursing needs to be explored to determine competency in the current environment where genetics is informing health care (Anderson et al, 2015). As previously highlighted, practicing nurses and nursing students and faculty lack basic knowledge about foundational genomic content, and a major barrier to genomic nursing education is inadequate faculty preparation in genomic subject matter (Dewell et al, 2020, 2021; Read & Ward, 2016); however, less is known about the genomic competency and knowledge of advanced practice nursing students and their faculty. This study aims to examine the genomic competency of advanced practice registered nursing students and faculty in a graduate school of nursing.…”

“…As a result of these efforts, the Essentials of Genetic and Genomic Nursing Competencies and Curricula Guidelines were published to define essential genetic and genomic competencies for all nurses regardless of level of academic preparation, practice setting, or specialty (Lewis et al, 2006). Nurses led the charge to develop competencies related to genetics over 20 years ago; however, recent evidence suggests that genomic content continues to be absent from nursing curricula, and nurses, nursing faculty, and nursing students lack knowledge of fundamental genomic constructs (Calzone et al, 2018;Dewell et al, 2020Dewell et al, , 2021Sharoff, 2017).…”