![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.gif)
Monday, 7 July 2008
Learning Objective 1: see the development of a core curriculum of infection control for using in undergraduate nursing programmes in Australia and Taiwan.
Learning Objective 2: establish the existing knowledge related to infecion control content of undergraduate nursing programmes internationally.
Despite the advances in medical knowledge and public health, infection control remains a significant issue in the healthcare setting. Also, as people become easily interconnected cross national borders, a global expansion of the importance of infection practice has emerged into an internationally recognized status within rapidly changing health care discipline (Katz & Hirsch 2003). Therefore, in recent years, the international community has placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of infection control in health services. Historically, most infection control practitioners have completed hospital-based training via experience and in-service education of infection control (Reed, Gorrie & Spelman 2003). In practice, nurses hold a major responsibility for infection control amongst the daily health care activities. However, little research has been undertaken to examine the curriculum content of infection control for undergraduate nursing students. There is no universally agreed core curriculum of infection control for undergraduate nursing students so far as identified by researchers. This study aims to explore the existing guidelines, standards and educational programmes on infection control and seeks to develop a core curriculum of infection control for undergraduate nursing students in Australia and Taiwan. A Delphi technique will be conducted to obtain the consensus of panel experts through using three rounds of questionnaires together with controlled feedback. Two expert panels from Australia and Taiwan will be employed in this study and each of them includes 30-36 panel experts. Data will be collected by mailing (either by postal mail or e-mail) questionnaires. Qualitative data will be coded and thematically analysed. Descriptive statistical responses of mode, means, median, rank, standard deviation and quartile will be used for describing the data. The results of this study are expected to make a contribution to a further development of international health care, and the education for nursing students as well as other healthcare practitioners.