Trends in nursing education in China

Purpose: To explore the current trends and development of nursing education in China. Nursing education in China has developed rapidly in alignment with economic growth of this vast country. Design: Descriptive, using 345 manuscript abstracts from various regions of China, submitted for the 1996 Sino-Hong Kong Educational Conference. Methods: Content analysis of manuscript abstracts was done to describe the trends. Codes were determined after several rounds of independent analysis. Findings: Development of nursing education in China appears in line with global trends. The preparation of a pragmatic nurse was emphasized by nurse educators who also advocate total patient care and the integration of traditional Chinese medicine in nursing education. Areas seldom mentioned, however, were student-centered approaches to learning, advanced practice, and the evaluation of educational processes and outcomes. Conclusions: Nurse educators in mainland China appear aware of the dynamics and challenges in health care, and the need for preparing a new generation of nurses to face these challenges. Educators in China need to adopt new approaches in teaching and learning to prepare nurses to function in a wide range of health care settings, and to monitor and evaluate educational outcomes.