Renewal of Nursing School Intellectual Disability Curriculum: Building capacity to better prepare registered nursing graduates to meet the complex health care needs of people with an intellectual disability

Australia’s higher education sector plays a key role in preparing registered nursing graduates to enter into the health workforce and meet the diverse healthcare needs of our population. However, most registered nursing students will graduate with little or no understanding of the specific health care needs of people with intellectual disability, a population which experiences a disproportionately high burden of disease and illness and poorer health outcomes when compared to the general population.

This study comprised the first phase of a larger project that aims to develop and implement a national tertiary educational framework in the area of intellectual disability physical and mental health.

Aims

determine and quantify how nursing schools prepare registered nursing graduates to meet the health care needs of people with an intellectual disability,
describe both the barriers and facilitators for inclusion of intellectual disability physical and mental health curriculum content faced by nursing schools,
compile intellectual disability physical and mental health curriculum resources, and
to identify and engage intellectual disability leaders (champions) from nursing schools across Australia.

Publications from this project

Trollor JN; Eagleson C; Turner B; Salomon C; Cashin A; Iacono T; Goddard L; Lennox N, 2016, 'Intellectual disability health content within nursing curriculum: An audit of what our future nurses are taught', Nurse Education Today, vol. 45, pp. 72 - 79, doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2016.06.011
Trollor JN; Eagleson C; Turner B; Salomon C; Cashin A; Iacono T; Goddard L; Lennox N, 2018, 'Intellectual disability content within pre-registration nursing curriculum: How is it taught?', Nurse Education Today, vol. 69, pp. 48 - 52, doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2018.07.002

Letters of Support

We received letters of support from the following universities: Charles Sturt University, LaTrobe University, Southern Cross University, University of Melbourne & University of Queensland.
Please click here to view the letters of support.