Bachelor of Nursing
Health Sciences and Social Services - Promotive Health and Developmental Services
Purpose and Rationale
Purpose:
The purpose of the qualification is as follows:
- To produce a leaner nurse with a wide social science preparation.
- To equip the learner with life-long learning, problem-solving, and research skills for functioning in comprehensive health care settings as a registered nurse, registered midwife, registered community health nurse, and registered psychiatric nurse.
- To provide a well-rounded, broad education that includes knowledge base, theory, principles, and skills of a general professional registered nurse.
- To offer principles and theory for entry into Postgraduate studies and research, or professional practice in General Nursing.
- To train nursing practitioners for obtaining a license to practice as a professional registered nurse in various contexts.
- To enable learners to demonstrate initiative and responsibility at different levels of professional and international contexts.
- To produce critical and independent thinking professional registered nurses engaging in life-long learning within ethical boundaries.
- To develop research capacity in nursing methodology and techniques for Master level research preparation.
- To produce competent professional nurse practitioners within diverse health service settings.
- To provide learners with skills, knowledge, and attitudes for contributing meaningfully to health services.
- To equip learners with a sense of equity, justice, and service ethics for responsible and accountable work behavior.
- To offer transferable skills for application in other professions, disciplines, and everyday life, including problem-solving approaches, empowerment-based development, communication competence, policy assessment and implementation, and project planning and management.
Rationale:
The rationale behind the qualification includes:
- Exposing learners to traditional hospital-based training and community-based education.
- Identifying special community needs and planning strategies to address them.
- Using innovative teaching methodologies to facilitate critical thinking, problem-solving, and lifelong learning through learner-lecturer interaction.
Outcomes
- Engage, maintain and terminate problem-solving partnerships with individuals (colleagues and patients), families/groups, communities and political authorities to prevent illness, promote health, and provide curative rehabilitative and supportive health care.
- Identify and address ethical and legal issues using critical reflection, on the suitability of different ethical value and legal systems for the nursing and midwifery practice within the legal framework.
- Apply knowledge of biological and natural sciences, psycho-social sciences and pharmacology in the provision of safe nursing care, throughout the life span, in a variety of health care settings and communities in response to population needs.
- Effectively manage a health care unit and health facility as a first line manager with the understanding of the roles and relationships within the multi-disciplinary team.
- Access, produce and manage information effectively and communicate it to a range of audiences.
- Utilise research in investigating nursing, midwifery and health-related problems.
- Delineate and evaluate personal practice continuously and accept responsibility for continuous professional and personal development through independent learning.
- Apply knowledge of theories, methods and techniques in the practice of safe clinical nursing and midwifery that is responsive to the needs of the individual, the family and the community, in accordance with national legislative and policy frameworks.
- Maintain optimal health of a woman, her family and baby, prepartum, postpartum and intra partum.
Assessment Criteria
The following Associated Assessment Criteria will be used in an integrated manner across the Exit Level Outcomes:
- Conducts a comprehensive assessment of a client in a caring, respectful, and culturally sensitive manner.
- Plan, implement, and evaluate individualized needs-based nursing care.
- Legal Practice: Correct record-keeping.
- Observe principles of safety, risk management, and infection control in the provision of nursing care to clients.
- Apply first aid principles in the execution of emergency care.
- Develop mechanisms to monitor and evaluate programs for their effectiveness and quality.
- Gather, identify, and retrieve health information to inform community nursing practice.
- Conduct health screening in workplace settings.
- Apply policies and procedures for antenatal care, labor, postnatal care, and neonatal care.
- Provide quality care to women during antenatal, labor, and postnatal periods and identify any deviations from normal and refer timely.
- Collaborate with other health professionals in managing care during antenatal, labor, and postnatal periods.
- Understand relevant investigations and interpret their findings.
- Support women and families during antenatal, labor, and postnatal periods.
- Provide quality care to neonates immediately after birth.
- Identify and refer neonates with conditions and complications during Pregnancy, Labor, and the puerperium.
- Apply knowledge of medical and obstetric conditions/complications during the puerperium.
- Use the midwifery management process and decision-making framework in managing clients with medical and obstetric complications.
- Refer urgently women with complications requiring a higher level of care.
- Order relevant investigations and interpret their findings.
- Prescribe and administer pharmacological agents as per scope of practice and country policies.
- Counsel and support women with complications and emergencies and counsel their families.
- Educate women on health-seeking behaviors.
- Collaborate with other health professionals in managing abnormal puerperal conditions.
- Keep accurate postnatal records.
- Demonstrate knowledge of assessing the mental health status of individuals across the lifespan for prevention, care, and management across the lifespan.
- Identify characteristics of mental health versus ill-health.
- Describe treatment modalities for the patient with mental disorders.
- Demonstrate an understanding of indications and uses of a variety of nursing interventions for persons faced with mental health/psychiatric disorders.
- Describe methods of designing mental health promotion qualifications/activities for individuals throughout the lifespan.
- Describes the medications prescribed for mental health problems/illnesses/conditions.
- Explains where to seek out information regarding policies and protocols on an institutional, provincial, and federal national level regarding psychiatric medication administration.
- Explains the rationale for specific therapeutic communication techniques to use with patients/clients.
- Understands the therapeutic roles of a nurse in a mental health setting.
- Identify situations in which agreed plans of care require modifications based on the needs of specific patient populations.
- Demonstrate knowledge of sources of evidence relevant to improve the quality of care in mental health and psychiatric nursing.
- Describes legal and regulatory factors that apply to Mental Health Nursing and Psychiatric Nursing practice.
- Describes strategies for identifying and managing overlaps in team member roles and accountabilities.
- Identify system factors that facilitate or interfere with effective team functioning.
- Identify specific psychological factors causing discomfort in mental health clients.
- Articulates the rationale for adapting comfort measures and nursing care for mental health patients/clients based on selected theories, concepts, and research-based evidence.
Integrated Assessment:
- Class presentations, cases studies/assignments, or seminars provide the opportunity for formative integrative assessment of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
- Summative assessment in each module includes the assessment of the learner's ability to critique current knowledge from international, national, and local sources.
- Formative theoretical assessments of accurate application of knowledge and skill with Critical Care clients.
- Summative Assessment through a three-hour examination assessing the application of therapeutic principles and strategies.
- Research project as a practical real-life integrated assessment of the learner's application and integration of knowledge from this qualification.
Qualification Details
- Type
- National First Degree
- NQF Level
- 07
- Min. Credits
- 360
- SAQA Source
- More Information
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