The education of specialized nurses' aides: current scenario and future perspectives

Introduction. The complementary training in health care of the nurse aides (NAs), launched in Italy in 2003, has little impact on health care organisations. Objective. To analyse, through the regional provisions issued in the last three years, the current state of complementary training in health care and propose some recommendations for the nursing profession with respect to the inclusion of this figure in care teams. Methods. A documentary content analysis was conducted with respect to six main topics: recipients and admission to the courses, organisation and characteristics of the courses, learning evaluation, responsibilities of the new NAs, expected competences and skills. Results. There is a clear need to update and standardise the contents of the courses, with a focus on current social and health problems and future scenarios, and to render more homogeneous the structure of the courses, to guarantee high standards at national level. The need of increasing the skills of the NAs is associated with the implementation of innovative care and organisational models that require the ability to care for populations whose needs have changed profoundly over the last twenty years. Conclusions. Health care teams with professionals with different skill -mix guarantee safe, appropriate, effective and efficient care: the organization should enable nurses to free up time to act out their competences in care planning, health promotion, therapeutic education, transition management and specialist functions.