Nursing schools fail to prepare students for elderly home care, study finds

**Sjuksköterskor behöver bättre utbildning för hemsjukvård till äldre** Svenska sjuksköterskestudenter känner sig ofta opräkade för att arbeta med äldre i hemsjukvård — ett växande behov när allt fler äldre vårdas hemma. Malmö universitet och Kristianstad universitet intervjuade 18 sjuksköterskestudenter för att kartlägga vad de förstår om denna roll. Studenterna identifierade tre huvudpunkter: sjuksköterskan måste samarbeta med äldre, anhöriga och kollegor för personcentrerad vård, men möter hinder från både organisationen och resursbrist. Trots detta såg de möjligheter — djupare relationer med patienterna, stöd till familjer och större samhällskoppling än på sjukhus. Resultatet visar att utbildningen behöver utvecklas. För äldreomsorgen betyder detta ett kritiskt behov av riktade kursupplägg som förbereder framtida sjuksköterskor för hemsjukvårdens praktiska realiteter och möjligheter.

BACKGROUND: Global demographic ageing trends and changes in healthcare require that nursing students are adequately prepared to care for older people in home care settings. However, many students report insufficient knowledge and feel unprepared for this role. The aim of this study was to describe the variation in nursing students' understanding of caring for older people receiving home care. This study forms part of a broader project aiming at developing a tailored educational intervention in collaboration with nursing students to prepare them for this role. METHODS: A qualitative study with a phenomenographic approach was conducted. Eighteen individual semi structured interviews were conducted with nursing students at three Swedish universities between February and April 2025. The interviews were conducted either via telephone, digitally via Zoom or face-to-face and subsequently analysed. RESULTS: The results comprise three descriptive categories illustrating the variation in nursing students' understanding of caring for older people: Nurses' collaborative role in tailoring person-centred care for older people receiving home care, Challenges to person-centred care for older people receiving home care and Opportunities to person-centred care for older people in the home care setting. Within these understandings, students emphasised that nurses need to collaborate with older people, their family members and colleagues to tailor person-centred care to older people at home. However, students also identified challenges that could hinder person-centred care for older people, inducing factors related to older people, nurses and the organisation. Despite these challenges, students recognised opportunities inherent in the home care setting, such as the potential to develop deeper relationships with older people, support their family members, and engage with the broader community. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that students recognised the essential collaborative role nurses play in tailored person-centred for older people in this setting, while also identifying challenges that may hinder its full realisation. At the same time, the students pointed to concrete opportunities for strengthening person-centred approaches within home care. These insights deepen our understanding of how nursing students conceptualise care for older people receiving home care and provide insight into how an educational intervention can be developed to better equip them to meet the complex needs of older people in this setting.