title: Stakeholders in nursing education: their role and involvement.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In literature, there is evidence that all stakeholders need to be involved in the curricula building process to make sure that health professionals are "educated" to meet the stakeholders' "demands". In Italy, the involvement of stakeholders in the definition of university curricula is ratified by various regulations.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe the major experiences of stakeholder involvement in nursing education, identify the main stakeholders for nursing education, and the processes in which they are involved.
  
  
  METHODS
  The search strategy included an electronic exploration of the relevant databases. The search terms were: Stakeholders, Curriculum, Nursing Education combined with Boolean operators. The references of the retrieved articles were hand searched for additional related studies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most of the studies identified were from the United Kingdom, Australia, and the USA. In Italy, no relevant studies were found. The most frequently identified stakeholders were: students, clinicians, educators, nurse managers. They were mainly involved during profound changes in the curricula and the implementation of new educational approaches.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stakeholders are mostly involved in countries with a private funding system for universities. Such funding systems have probably developed in the academia a greater propensity to involve stakeholders, to provide recognition of success when starting new programs, and are perceived more as marketing research. This seems contrary to the spirit of the Italian and European regulatory interventions, which instead, provide a structured commitment to consolidating and expanding the collaboration among universities, users, and the world of labor. This latter collaboration should facilitate internship activities, lifelong learning, and employability of the newly-graduated professionals.
authors.affiliation: RN, MSN, PhD student, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Virgolesi
authors.affiliation: RN, MSN, PhD student, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marchetti
authors.affiliation: RN, MSN, PhD student, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piredda
authors.affiliation: Director Education Pillar, Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship IPASVI, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: A M L
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Pulimeno
authors.affiliation: Director, Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship IPASVI, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rocco
authors.affiliation: Researcher, Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship IPASVI, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stievano
authors.affiliation: Professor of Nursing, University of Campus Bio-Medico, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: De Marinis
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005381:Financing, Organized; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy
keywords: Curriculum; Nursing Education; Stakeholders