Students' Perception Regarding the Integration of Basic Sciences Courses in Nursing Curriculum

Background Integration of basic sciences course in nursing provides theoretical and clinical foundation in preparing clinically competent nurses to tackle todays' sophisticated health care system. Although basic sciences have always been considered as the subject of difficulty, there is paucity of evidence that explored the difficulties associated with the basic sciences courses in nursing curriculum. Objective To explore the difficulties experienced by the students and solutions to the difficulties related to basic sciences course from nursing students' perspective. Method A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted enrolling 164 nursing students. A self-administered semi structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were entered and analyzed descriptively in SPSS version 16 and information obtained was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result Of the total 164 students, 93.3% perceived basic science as a difficult subject. Vast course content (79.73%), insufficient time allocation (40.52%) and integration of six basic sciences subjects into one (29.41%) were the major difficulties. Solution emphasized by students were to: make course specific to nursing (67.36%), organize frequent tests (61.11%), focus more on clinical implications (46.60%), increase credit hours (37.50%), conduct exams of six basic sciences subjects separately and provide examination feedback (29.36%). Entrance marks score was found to influence difficulty in basic sciences (p=0.01). Conclusion Basic science is considered as the difficult subject by nursing students. Necessary actions may be taken by the curriculum reviewer, college administration and the educators so as to minimize this difficulty among students.