Nurse education in Jordan: history and development.

AIM: This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of nurse education and practice in Jordan. THE PROBLEM: Several types and levels of nurse education have been established influenced, in particular, by Northern American and British models of nurse education and practice. New colleges with new programmes are being introduced at all levels, with a continuing growth in the number of students graduating from nursing programmes, demonstrating the extent to which the status of nursing is changing in Jordan. However, the development of nurse education in Jordan is not wholly congruent with the development of nursing practice. The majority of nursing activities are embedded within a medical model of care or relate to carrying out medical orders, giving rise to task-oriented care delivery. Jordanian nurses are faced with many challenges in terms of their education and practice. METHODS: There are few published papers that provide a description of this development. The extant literature on nursing history in Jordan comprises descriptions by university academics, official websites of nursing's regularity body, in addition to anecdotal accounts and conference presentations. CONCLUSION: Nurse education in Jordan has evolved over a relatively short period of time. Collaboration between academics and healthcare providers is vital in order to shape the role of nurses and nursing in the future. Insights gained from this development may benefit nurses globally who are working towards restructuring their nurse education and practice.

Jordanian perspectives on advanced nursing practice: an ethnography.

AIM: This study aimed to explore how different groups of participants perceived the concept of advanced nursing practice in Jordan. BACKGROUND: In Jordan, there are postgraduate educational programmes offering a Master's degree in clinical nursing for registered nurses. Intended to prepare nurses to practise at an advanced level as potential clinical nurse specialists in critical care, community health nursing and maternal newborn nursing, little was known prior to this study about the development of advanced nursing roles for nurses in Jordan and the drivers behind their establishment. METHODS: Using ethnographic design, narratives from semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation with participants from five Jordanian hospitals and two public universities were collected and analysed according to thematic analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: Four themes emerged from the data: core competencies, specific practice area vs. generic practice, beneficiaries of advanced nursing practice and drivers for educational change. The findings are similar to those found in other countries and highlight the need for a consensual understanding between nurse educationalists, professional bodies and employers about what advanced nursing practice in Jordan should be, so that a common framework can be identified. CONCLUSION: Paralleling the lack of consistency in understanding of advanced nursing practice in the broader literature, participants described a number of different elements of advanced practice that are relevant to the specific context of contemporary Jordanian nursing.