Abstract:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills for university nursing students (UNS) is a well researched area; however there are different opinions as to whether ICT skills related courses should be taught in undergraduate nursing programmes. On one hand, authors suggest that the pervasive use of ICTs in secondary educations makes the teaching of ICT skills at university level unnecessary as students do have the required ICT skills to cope at university level. On the other hand, considering the digital divide and that underprivileged students may not have had equal access to use computers and the fact that students are mostly using computers for entertainment and socializing, it raises doubts as to whether new university students actually do have the ICT skills required to cope with their students.

Depending on how they perceive the issue universities may, or may not, include one or more undergraduate courses on ICT skills in their curriculum. Universities may require new students to attend these courses mandatorily while others may give the opportunity to freshmen students to opt out from attending the courses is they can prove that they do have the required level of expertise that the university defines.
To highlight the importance of ICT skills for nursing professionals and to emphasize the fact that university nursing graduates must have the required ICT skills in order to enter the nursing profession effectively, a number of countries also included ICT skills as part of their National ICT or Nursing Strategies.

This paper will present the findings of a review study that examined the content of nursing curricula of undergraduate programs in two public and two private universities in Cyprus in terms of the ICT skills and competencies included and taught in these programs. Both the theoretical and practical components of each curriculum are examined and their similarities and differences are identified.

The qualitative data was derived through unstructured interviews with personnel of the four universities and indicate that universities do not consider ICT courses as an important component of their nursing curricula.

In view of the introduction of the National Health System in Cyprus in 2017, the study recommends a number of actions to be taken so that the university nursing departments urgently review the content of their nursing curricula with the aim to align the content of the ICT and Nursing Informatics courses with the skills required by novice nurses who enter the nursing profession and are expected to play a vital role for the successful implementation of the NHS in Cyprus.

Keywords:

Competences, curriculum, Cyprus, ICT, informatics, nursing, skills.