Evaluation of service learning in a school of nursing: Primary care in a community setting

Headnote

ABSTRACT

The evolving system of health care delivery, emphasizing prevention and early intervention, presents challenges to schools that educate health care professionals. Nursing faculty in a rural mid-Atlantic state initiated a service-learning project, relating education and service through primary care in the surrounding community. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the project outcomes.

The 45 students involved in the project responded to Beliefs Related to Professional Nursing Competencies, a quantitative measure (Cronbach's alpha = .84), based on the Pew Health Commission's "Competencies Needed by Practitioners for 2005," and to a second measure, Qualitative Questions for Students in Service Learning. Results of quantitative analysis revealed subjects' acceptance of the competencies as nursing responsibilities. Qualitative analysis revealed that students were involved in increasing consumer access to community-based primary care; curricula relating learning to existing problems and rewarding critical thinking was evident; and students were receiving preparation for a health care environment that will rely on their ability to respond to its changing needs.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the first two semesters of a service-learning project initiated in a school of nursing to develop a relationship between education of health care professionals and delivery of community-based primary care. The project proposal, which involved students in the college's departments of Human Ecology and Physical Education, as well as nursing students, received a 3-year grant, funded by the Health Professions Schools in Service to the Nation (1993). The funding agency is a program of the Pew Health Professions Commission and National Fund for Medical Education, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Corporation for National Service's Learn and Service America Higher Education Program, and the Bureau of Health Professions. The purposes of the project specific to nursing were to:

* Increase access for the undeserved population in the surrounding rural areas to health promotion and disease prevention interventions.

* Link those interventions to unmet community health needs documented by community-based health care assessments.

* Create educational environments that tie learning to real problems and reward critical thinking by incorporating service learning into existing nursing courses.

* Better educate nursing and allied health professionals for the changing health care environment.

The program was initiated in the fall semester of 1995, with sophomores, juniors,...