An Investigation into the efficacy of nursing curriculum on elderly health problems via Delphi's method

Elderly people are a vulnerable group of society. Today, health authorities of the country pay a great deal of attention to the issue of aging. Given the fact that nurses are have direct contact with patients referring to health centers, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive and practical training program for future nurses. This can help provide adequate care for the elderly. The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of nursing students' undergraduate curriculum on the elderly health problems via Delphi's method.

This futuristic study was carried out at Iran Medical Sciences Universities between December 2016 and November 2017. The research sample consisted of 63 faculty members and non-faculty members who were randomly selected. The final document and data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and SPSS (version 24) were used to analyze the data.

In the first step, according to 70 percent of participants, the allocated time on providing "Elderly Care" content, as well as providing actual content by the professors of each credit is not sufficient. The findings of the second step revealed that 79 percent of participants indicated, adding the topic of "Elderly Care" to the mentioned syllabus, greatly contributes to improving the capabilities of graduates.

The studies suggest that the curriculums of "Bachelor of Nursing" (BN) does not have an operational approach toward the problems of elderly period, and the necessity of some variations, such as increasing the number of credits and allocating distinct syllabus to the topic of aging, employing the faculty member in the major specialties of elderly, and involving them in teaching, seems critical.