Educational strategies to encourage participation in health policy for nurses: A systematic review

Objectives: To identify evidence on the types of educational interventions that have been developed to encourage participation in health policy for nurses and on the effectiveness of these interventions. Design: A systematic literature review. Data sources: Six electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL, Web of Science, and SCOPUS) were searched. Review methods: All qualitative and quantitative studies on educational interventions developed to encourage participation in health policy for nurses were included in this study. Two researchers independently reviewed each article for inclusion and assessed the eligibility of the studies. The effects of educational interventions were analyzed through a thematic synthesis for the qualitative studies and data tabulation for the quantitative studies. A comprehensive framework of educational strategies to encourage participation in health policy was developed based on three stages of citizen participation in policy-making. Results: Seven articles were selected for the review: four quantitative studies and three qualitative studies. In all studies that confirmed the educational effect through quantitative design, statistically significant improvement in students' competency on policy participation was observed. In the qualitative study, it was possible to mainly confirm the students' positive feelings toward policy participation education, and three themes were derived: expanding the perspective of policy, understanding the actual feature of policymakers, and improving the possibility of policy participation. The education strategies were synthesized into six types, which were divided into three stages according to the level of citizen participation in policy-making: Listener, Observer, Twitterian, Analyst and Speaker, Interviewer, and Contributor. Conclusion: Education on health policy increases the competency and interest of nurses concerning policy participation. We propose systematic policy education according to the policy participation stage. To realize this, nursing educators should secure faculty with relevant expertise and develop a verified curriculum.