Literature Review concerning Assistance issues for Foreign Nurse Candidates in Japan under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)

Abstract

This study is aimed at reviewing literatures to examine assistance issues for foreign nurse candidates under the Economic Partnership Agreement(EPA) from the perspectives of providing assistance in “adapting to the educational environment,” “learning nursing practices” and “passing the national examination.” Literature search has been conducted on the Japan Medical Abstracts Society database, CiNii and CINAHL, covering literatures issued from 2008 to 2018 and using keywords “EPA,” “nursing,” “Japan,” “nurse,” “Economic Partnership Agreement,” “Philippines,” “Indonesia” and “Vietnam.” The search was narrowed down to 15 literatures, which were reviewed closely in the matrix approach with a focus on assistance for foreign nurse candidates under the EPA to extract examples of assistance for foreign nurse candidates in line with the main theme of this paper. Required assistance for foreign nurse candidates included enhancing Japanese language learning to gain fluency to pass the national exam, providing public support to establish common consensus about multicultural issues and nursing work differences between countries, and drawing up an educational program and guidelines.