Karlstad University conducts high-quality nursing specialisation education, according to UKÄ

Two of Karlstad University’s four nursing specialisation programmes have been assessed and are deemed to be of high quality in line with the national objectives.

– I’m glad that UKÄ considers our nursing specialisation programmes to be of high quality, says Lena German Millberg, programme director for the nursing specialisation programmes at Karlstad University. It is stated that we conduct high quality teaching by knowledgeable teachers.

The evaluation aimed to assess the quality of the programmes and how well they correspond with the national objectives for specialist nursing education. According to the report, Karlstad University’s nursing specialisation programmes offer a high level of academic and professional expertise, with active participation by teachers with relevant specialisations for the programme in question.

The situation can quickly change, however, due to Sweden in general having an employee turnover rate of teachers with a PhD. Based on the current conditions, with an apparent shortage of skilled labour, the Swedish Higher Education Authority recommendation is that each programme should be required to have teachers with pedagogical expertise as well as one teacher with a PhD.

Even if the assessment of Karlstad University’s programmes yielded positive results, a flaw was also pointed out in that some of the clinical supervisors lack supervision training. The Swedish Higher Education Authority highlights this as an area that Karlstad University and its healthcare collaboration partners need to address going forward. Karlstad University views this as an opportunity for further development of its degree programmes in order to achieve an even higher level of quality.

Lena German Millberg believes that the evaluation results are of great importance for the future development of the programmes.

The evaluation was conducted by an assessment group who reviewed the quality of the programmes, based on four assessment criteria: conditions, structure, student perspective and working life/cooperation. In total, 40 nursing specialisation programmes at 25 higher education institutions have been evaluated. The Swedish Higher Education Authority reviewed 10 programmes specialised in pre-hospital emergency care, 13 public health care programmes and 17 psychiatric care programmes. All in all, 13 of these were deemed to be of questionable quality.

The most common flaws pointed out in the report were difficulties in ensuring that relevant skills and abilities are learned during the practical placement periods, as well as the lack of clinical experience among the teachers. Increasing the amount of positions linked to clinical work may be a way of creating a closer connection between theory and practice, as well as improving the possibilities of providing support for the clinical supervisors. Despite many universities working actively towards increasing the number to positions linked to clinical work, not all of them have managed to find teachers with PhDs for all specialisations.

– It’s important to continue our efforts to increase quality and to plan for the future, with the changes that healthcare is facing, says Lena German Millberg. Another positive point mentioned in the evaluation is that the entire organisation highlights gender equality in a good way.

Read the reports here:

Specialist Nursing in Pre-Hospital Emergency Care

Public Health Care