Enhancing nursing students’ awareness of the role of cancer research nurses to improve future recruitment

Abstract

Why you should read this article: • To understand nursing students' awareness and perceptions of the role of cancer research nurses • To recognise how misconceptions regarding the role of cancer research nurses could adversely affect future recruitment to this area of nursing • To learn about the benefits of an intervention in which educational sessions were delivered to nursing students with the aim of improving their understanding of the role of research nurses Concerns about oncology nurse recruitment – particularly in research nursing – were raised by the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres national nurses steering group in 2017, and this led to the development of a national pilot educational engagement project. The project involved delivering educational sessions to nursing students to improve their understanding of the role of cancer research nurses and clinical research in cancer settings. These sessions were delivered onsite to second-year and third-year adult nursing students at two universities in north east England and one in Edinburgh, Scotland, and online to students at Canterbury Christ Church University, England. This article discusses the results of pre-intervention and post-intervention questionnaires that aimed to determine whether the educational sessions improved students' understanding of the research nurse role and whether they would consider it as a career on graduating.