[Gerontological and geriatric education in baccalaureate nursing degree: a national survey]

Nowadays most nurses have to care for elderly people and in the future this will become always more frequent due to progressive ageing of population. Thus nurses will need to have the necessary skills so as to be able to answer to the many complex needs of this population. A national survey has been carried out to find out what kind of Gerontological education currently exists in Italian nursing degree courses. A questionnaire was sent out to all the coordinators/directors of the Nursing Schools in the 171 educational locations within the 38 Italian universities where the degree course was active during the academic year 2005/2006. 34 university (84.4%) and 88 of the 171 locations (51.4%) answered the questionnaire.A certain variety is present at national level for theoretical and clinical education in Geriatrics and Gerontology, in terms, for example, of number of credits, type of clinical placements and time in the curricula for the educational experiences; most Nursing Schools have specific courses dedicated to Geriatric/Gerontological contents. Moreover coordinators/directors believe that the space offered to Geriatrics education is enough and that overloading of the curriculum would be a more considerable obstacle to the introduction and to the increase of Geriatric content in the curricula. Although not all Italian Nursing Schools participated, this survey provides relevant information about present education offered in elderly care in Italy, and permits us to give useful suggestions to Italian educators and nursing tutors.