An integrative review of the literature on the teaching of the history of nursing in pre-registration adult nursing education in the UK

Aims: To present an integrative review of literature on the teaching of nursing history in pre-registration adult nursing education. Background Despite successive reconfigurations in healthcare systems and education policy, the teaching of the history of nursing remains contested in pre-registration curricula. Recent curriculum reviews acknowledge the need for systematic study of nursing education. To date in the UK, there has been no systematic review of the literature on the teaching of nursing history in pre-registration training programmes. Design: An integrative review of the literature. Data sources: A search of the electronic databases of CINAHL (1982–2013), HMIC (1979–2013), BNI (1994–2013) and MEDLINE (Pub Med) (1966–2013) was concluded in January 2014, using the keywords ‘adult nursing’, ‘history’ ‘pre-registration’, ‘education’ and ‘teaching’. Review methods: An integrative literature review was conducted. Identified titles and abstracts were screened separately by researchers for relevance and eligibility and papers were independently assessed for inclusion. Data were abstracted from included papers and quality evaluation of included papers was conducted. The papers were analysed and reported in a narrative synthesis. Results: Twelve papers were selected for review. The majority of articles were discursive papers and there was a paucity of empirical reports. Content indicated concerns for teaching nursing history in regard to curriculum policy and methods of teaching and assessment. Conclusions: Substantial support exists for mandatory inclusion of the teaching of historical literacy in nursing centred on the themes of health and disease, hegemony, nursing work and image and ideology. Due to space and teaching expertise issues this could ideally be achieved through the use of nursing museum visits, the usefulness of which could be critically explored in future research.