title: Global health competencies for nurses in the Americas.
abstract: This article reports the findings from an online survey of nursing faculty from the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Caribbean countries to identify their perceptions about global health competencies for undergraduate nursing students. A list of global health competencies for medical students developed by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada Resource Group on Global Health and the Global Health Education Consortium was adapted for nurses and translated from English to Spanish and Portuguese. The competencies were divided into six subscales, and respondents rated each competency on a 4-point Likert scale, with high scores reflecting strong agreement that the competency was essential for undergraduate nursing students. E-mail invitations and links to the online survey were distributed using a nonprobability convenience sampling strategy. This article reports findings only from the respondents to the English and Spanish surveys. The final sample included 542 responses to the English survey and 51 responses to the Spanish survey. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients for the subscales ranged from .78 to .96. The mean values for all 6 subscales and for each of the 30 items were greater than 3.0 for the respondents to the Spanish survey, and the mean values for 27 of the items were greater than 3.0 for the respondents to the English survey. These findings suggest that respondents perceived the competencies as essential global health competencies for undergraduate nursing students in the Americas. Narrative comments written by respondents indicate additional competencies and specific concerns about adding additional content to an already full curricula. Results of this study can be used to guide faculty deliberations about global health competencies that should be incorporated in the nursing curricula.
authors: The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1210, USA. lyndawilson@uab.edu
authors: Lynda
authors: L
authors: Wilson
authors: Doreen C
authors: DC
authors: Harper
authors: Irene
authors: I
authors: Tami-Maury
authors: Rosa
authors: R
authors: Zarate
authors: Susana
authors: S
authors: Salas
authors: Jason
authors: J
authors: Farley
authors: Nicole
authors: N
authors: Warren
authors: Isabel
authors: I
authors: Mendes
authors: Carla
authors: C
authors: Ventura
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D017691:Caribbean Region; D002489:Central America; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000592:standards*; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate / Q000592:standards*; D014943:Global Health / Q000592:standards*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D009656:North America; D016746:Transcultural Nursing / Q000193:education* / Q000592:standards