An-Najah Staff

Developing the quality of the Palestinian healthcare system requires the development of ‎its members. This quality should be based on standards of care and has to be originated ‎within the nursing graduate programs and Bachelor programs in particular. Good education ‎implies providing a number of conditions related to external systematic and administrative ‎aspects, as well as internal ones that are concerned with the educational system through ‎curriculum, teaching methods, and teacher’s competences. The aim of this study was to ‎identify the perception of the West Bank Palestinian universities’ nursing faculties towards ‎applying nursing education standards in the bachelor degree programs. In addition, the ‎study sought to identify the methods and measurement tools used for the application of ‎nursing standards.‎

To  these  two  ends,  the  researcher  used  the  quantitative,  descriptive  exploratory approach and qualitative, in addition to a few subjective questions that helped to identify ‎the phenomenon under study. Subjects of the study were 48 nursing faculty members from ‎Al-Quds University (27.1%), An-Najah National University (18.7%), Bethlehem University ‎‎(8.3%), Hebron University (6.3%), and Ibn Sina College for health sciences (39.6%).‎

After data collection and analysis, a variation was found among the study localities in ‎relation to number of subjects and compared with the differences among them concerning ‎the implementation of standards. The majority of the subjects, aged 40 and more, were ‎congruent with the total number of years of experience as the majority had 12 and more ‎years of experience. The majority of subjects were holders of M.SC. (85.4%) compared to 6.3% Ph.D. holders. The majority were females (71%) and 68.8% were titled as lecturers.‎

The  subjects’  perception  towards  the  philosophy  and  goals  of  nursing  education ‎programs standards at bachelor level was positive. About of 83% agreed on utilization of ‎NES. The highest response was from the subjects at An-Najah University. This means that ‎there  were  a  significant  differences  at  the  level  of  α  =  0.05  between  the  means  of ‎philosophy and goals of nursing education programs standards which might be attributed to ‎the  experience  variable.  An-Najah  University  was  the  most   significant  in  applying ‎standards in comparison with the others. This shows that the more years of experience the ‎participants had, the more oriented and the more they understood of the philosophy and ‎goals of nursing education standards implemented by their faculties.‎

In the light of analysis of the results, the researcher suggested some recommendations ‎for the administrative bodies of nursing programs to improve their quality. One ‎recommendation  is  the  development  of  additional  evaluation  systems  to  measure  theimplementation of nursing education standards and its outcomes. Another recommendation ‎is  to  review  and  make  innovations  and  improvements  in  the  nursing  programs  and ‎education system capacity to emphasize high quality patient centered care, and evidence ‎based-care. The researcher also suggests faculty members' development by offering them ‎scholarships to pursue their education. Finally, the researcher suggests a revision of the ‎available programs and establishment of a new innovative nursing program.‎