The programme sets out to achieve the following learning outcomes:
Health promotion and maintenance
- manage prevention and care activities for patients, families and the community;
- collaborating with other professionals, plan and implement information and education programmes to control individual and group risk factors;
- educate people to a healthy lifestyle and to modifying risky lifestyles.
Organisation and continuity of care
- define the priorities of the interventions according to care needs, organisational needs and the optimal use of the available resources;
- collaborating with other professionals, design and manage nursing care for a group of patients (including night-time care);
- assign and supervise care activities performed by support staff;
- manage paper-based and computer-based information systems supporting the care activities;
- document the nursing care delivered in compliance with ethical and legal principles;
- give patients and their families thorough information on their health status, as it relates to their position as nurses;
- together with the nursing team, manage patients’ transfer or discharge;
- guarantee continuous care through work shifts;
- use professional integration tools (meetings, team meetings, case study discussions, clinical audits);
- work efficiently in a team;
- develop professional relations, working with other health professionals aware of the specific character of each role within the healthcare team;
- supervise support staff and/or students;
- effectively use verbal, non-verbal and written communication to convey nursing-related evaluations and decisions to the team members.
Safety and risk control when admitting patients
- ensure an effective physical and psycho-social environment for the safety of the patients;
- adopt protection measures against physical, chemical and biological risks in the work place;
- adopt precautions for manual handling of loads;
- take standard preventive measures against the risk of infection in hospitals and community settings.
Care provision/Mental health
- manage relationships with patients, their families and other caregivers;
- together with other colleagues, assess and manage patients’ discomfort and behaviour, such as mental confusion, disorientation, and restlessness;
- together with the team, support patients and their families during terminal phases of disease and grief;
- together with other colleagues, contribute to managing situations of mental distress.
Clinical nursing for patients with acute and chronic health problems (maternal-child/adult/elderly)
- provide nursing care to patients (children, adults and the elderly) with priority health issues including: acute and chronic respiratory problems, cardiovascular, metabolic and rheumatological, acute and chronic kidney, acute and chronic gastrointestinal, liver, neurological, oncological, infectious, orthopaedic and traumatological, obstetric-gynaecological, haematological problems;
- verify and manage nursing care for patients with chronic problems and disabilities;
- manage perioperative nursing care;
- promote and support patients' residual abilities to adapt to the limitations and alterations caused by their disease and the modification to their life styles;
- identify patients' nursing care needs and their reactions to the disease, the treatments, institutionalisation, modifications to their everyday activities and their quality of life;
- monitor the clinical and psycho-social situation of patients, identifying signs and symptoms of deterioration in advance;
- ensure the care required to manage acute and/or critical situations;
- identify and prevent factors triggering relapses in chronic patients.
Application and management of diagnosis and treatment
- ensure the safe administration of treatment/s and monitor their effectiveness;
- take decisions based on the patients' conditions, vital parameters, medical reports and laboratory data;
- together with colleagues, manage diagnostic paths ensuring appropriate patient preparation and subsequent monitoring;
- integrate nursing care into multidisciplinary care paths.
Patient education and community intervention methods
- establish informal care networks to support patients and families in long-term care projects;
- design educational projects together with patients and their families to develop self-care skills;
- support patients in learning to manage their own problems/treatments/devices;
- educate caregivers to manage the problems of the assisted patients.
Clinical method
- use the nursing care process to support patients and their families;
- verify nursing care needs using ascertainment techniques and instruments;
- draft a nursing plan matching the development of the patients' problems;
- forecast the development of nursing care needs of patients;
- assess the results of the care delivered and adapt the nursing plan according to the observed developments.
Effectiveness tests
- research effectiveness tests in scientific literature based on the issues emerging from clinical practice;
- critically analyse the scientific literature;
- use the best evidence in practice, according to the values, beliefs and preferences of the patients, the available resources and the clinical opinion.
Self-learning
- verify personal learning needs, discussing them with the tutor/mentor;
- design a self-learning plan for vocational learning activities;
- seek feedback from and discuss with the supervisor concerning clinical learning contexts;
- draft a personal plan of elective learning activities (courses and vocational activities);
- produce a personal portfolio.
Nursing procedures
- implement the nursing procedures defined in the degree programme standards.
Curriculum:
Year 1 – aiming to provide basic biomedical, hygiene and preventive knowledge and the fundamentals of the professional discipline, as requirements for managing the first internship experience, offering guidance to students in their referred professional fields and aiming to acquire basic care skills.
Year 2 – aiming to study physio-pathological, pharmacological, clinical and care knowledge to tackle the most common health problems in medical and surgical fields, with preventive and curative care during the acute phase of the disease and educational and psycho-social support during the chronic phase. Learning activities develop methodological competences to understand scientific and nursing research, also supporting the production of the dissertation. Internships offer practical experience of different contexts, in which students are able to experiment the acquired knowledge and techniques.
Year 3 - specialist studies aiming to acquire knowledge and methodologies for professional practice, team-working skills and the ability to work in a complex organisation. The relevance of the internship performed increases, and students are able to experiment the gradual assumption of autonomy and responsibility with the supervision of experts.
The credits allocated to the internship experiences increase gradually from year 1 to 3.