Innovation and research on the Community Nursing curriculum: Literature review

Abstract

A literature review has been carried out in the period of 1983-2014. The aim has been to know the curricular development of the Community Nursing subject in the university degree of Nursing in the Spanish context. The search was conducted in nine databases of Nursing, Education, Health Sciences and other Social Sciences, in addition to TESEO. The selection criteria for documents were: the type of document, the nationality and the date of publication. 43 documents were analyzed, 24 of which were innovation experiences and 19 curricular investigations. The most frequent topic in the publications was the practical-clinical training of the students in the field of Primary Care. The most studied curricular elements were the evaluation and the methodology. The students were the most studied population in a research with clear quantitative perspective, in which the survey stands out as the main data collection technique. The scientific-curricular development has been greatly reduced. Very few publications have been located and curricular research has been limited, diverse in thematic areas and curricular elements, and homogeneous in methodological approaches.