Equity Access: Online Nursing Education on Care for People With Disabilities

Few schools of nursing have explicit content that focuses on disability as a multidimensional construct. Time and expertise are two barriers to increasing that material.

To address this gap, a set of online modules were developed to provide an introduction to the specialized knowledge related to the care of individuals with disabilities, with a focus on advocacy. The modules include multiple teaching strategies and can be assigned as supplemental to existing coursework. The modules were tested with 256 undergraduate senior-level nursing students.

Overall, students assessed the learning experience as very effective and reported achieving the stated learning objectives. Negative feedback was primarily issues related to technology and ease of use of one particular module.

The Equity Access modules are a feasible way to supplement existing nursing curricula content specific to the care of individuals with disabilities. Additional systematic evaluation is needed to assess how the modules influence practice. [J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(6):349-351.].