Teaching and learning methods for nursing students on nutrition: scoping review

Abstract

Introduction: Food intake can determine a person's individual state of health and well-being. Addressing relevant nutrition content in the nursing curriculum is the key to providing knowledge, attitudes and skills on prevention and treatment and to promoting health. Objective: To review the evidence concerning teaching and learning methods on nutrition for undergraduate nursing students. Methods: A search was carried out in MEDLINE (PubMed/Ovid), Web of Science (WOS), EMBASE (through OvidSP), CINAHL (through EBSCO Publishing), ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) and Scopus. The search included publications in English and Spanish from the launch of the databases until January 2021. Primary empirical studies, studies with nursing students in the sample and studies that reported on teaching and learning about nutrition were included in this review. Results: 22 articles met the inclusion criteria, identifying four relevant themes: 1) Review of nursing programs and curricula; 2) Teaching designs; 3) Assessment of learning; 4) Student perceptions of the teaching methodology. Conclusions: This scoping review highlights the benefits of teaching nursing students about nutritional care programmes. The publications included show great heterogeneity across programmes, explicit learning outcomes and evaluation methods. Our findings suggest the need to further expand and strengthen research on design, implementation and evaluation of learning sequences