Current status and problem analysis on cultivating master of nursing specialist in 28 universities

Objective To analyze the problem on cultivating master of nursing specialist (MNS) in China and to explore the measures on education reform for them. Methods We selected 28 nursing schools which participated in special evaluation for MNS in 2014. And then, we collected and descriptively analyzed relevant data on MNS during 2011-2015 on culturing conditions, enrollment scale, training objective, course offered, clinical practice and so on. Results The average professional practice base of MNS was 7.1 among investigated schools. Besides, the enrollment proportion of master with professional degree rose steadily which reached 48.2% in 2015. Cultivating schools established training objective for practical talents of MNS. A three-stage cultivating mode of course learning, clinical practice and scientific research training was universally applied. However, there were also many problems involving that subject conditions and foundation among different schools were largely different; the construction of teaching staff still needed to be strengthened, the number of enrollment was small, training objective was not clear, course offered was lack of characteristics. Conclusions Education reform for MNS can be promoted in improving the discipline construction, strengthening the construction of teaching staff, identifying cultivation orientation, extending cultivation direction by combining industry needs, strengthening standardization construction of curriculum system, enhancing clinical practice ability guided by competence of nursing position and so on. Key words: Master of nursing; Professional degree; Graduate student cultivation