Article ID: 2022-0035
Japan is a super-aging society, so nurses are expected to hold increasingly essential roles in both hospital- and community-based settings in the future. To strengthen community-oriented geriatric and community health nursing competencies among undergraduate nursing students, we implemented an undergraduate nursing practicum called the Preventive Home Visits Practicum (PHVP). In the PHVP, students are grouped into teams of four (a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior) before visiting healthy community-dwelling older adults to discuss life, health, and activities of daily living. A qualitative descriptive focus group design was used to examine student learning outcomes across 4 years of participation in the PHVP. The data obtained in focus group interviews were descriptively analyzed. Students deepened their understanding of health and aging lives in an aging population and developed interpersonal relationships and communication through the practicum across the 4-year period. Additionally, we found that a team composed of students from all different grades achieved very effective learning through interactions among team members. These findings suggest that nursing practicums that require nursing students to visit community-dwelling older adults longitudinally, such as the PHVP, may have an important educational impact and may address the needs of the aging population.
