Evaluation of undergraduate cancer pathway for adult nursing students

Armoogum, Julie; Hepplewhite, Alison

Abstract

Introduction
A three year Undergraduate Cancer Pathway (UCP) has been incorporated into the BSc Adult Nursing programme at University of West of England. The UCP mirrors a possible pathway for a person with cancer. Thus, content includes prevention and screening pre diagnosis and information at diagnosis (year 1), treatments and symptom control (year 2) and long term side effects and survivorship (year 3). We sought student evaluation.
Aims/objectives
To seek student views on UCP including learning objectives, content, use of technology enhanced learning and application to clinical practice.
Methods
Second year undergraduate nursing students were sent an online questionnaire.
Findings
22 student nurses completed questionnaires. All respondents were female and most were 26-35 years (56%, n-12). Many had cancer experience, either in their personal life (59%, n – 13), during placements (27%, n-6), as HCA (27%, n–6) but four (18%) had no experience. Most students agreed that an educational pathway that followed a patient experience of a disease was a useful way to learn about the disease (82%, n-18), understand the patient journey (91%, n–20), learn about nursing care at various stages of the patient journey (91%, n–20) and have a greater understanding of the patient perspective (91%, n-20). Over 4/5th felt the UCP has influenced them to want to learn more about cancer care (86%, n–19) and over half (56%, n–12) said they were more likely to want to work in cancer care. All students (100%, n–22) expressed that they enjoyed the UCP. Free text comments were positive and gave suggestions for future content.
Discussion/conclusion.
The introduction of a UCP has been a success. Students enjoyed the learning and felt inspired to further their knowledge. Findings have been incorporated into the UCP.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: UKONS Annual Conference
• Start Date: Nov 13, 2015
• End Date: Nov 14, 2015
• Deposit Date: Apr 12, 2023
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10621962