Degree in Nursing
Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
Key Information
Campus location
Coimbra, Portugal
Languages
Portuguese
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
4 years
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
EUR 5,500 / per year
Application deadline
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Introduction
Description of the Objectives Targeted by the Study Cycle
To have knowledge and comprehension capacity to intervene in the different nursing areas
Know how to apply the acquired knowledge and understanding, in order to show a professional approach
Ability to solve problems in the context of human responses to health problems and processes of transition of individuals, groups and communities, and of building and rationalizing their own arguments
Ability to gather, select and interpret relevant information, together with individuals, groups and communities, to enable them to support the solutions they recommend and the clinical judgments they issue, including in the analysis the relevant social, scientific and ethical aspects
Competencies that allow them to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions, both to specialists and non-specialists
Lifelong learning skills with a high degree of autonomy
Conceptual Framework
Nursing in the last thirty years has undergone a significant evolution in the level of scientific knowledge and training at the technological level and at the level of the philosophy of care resulting from sociocultural, political, economic, demographic and epidemiological changes in modern societies.
The challenges facing nurses in Portugal, as in other countries of the Western world, are mainly related to the complexity of health and disease situations that require an interdisciplinary approach, which goes beyond health and requires real work of the team and the use of creativity to circumvent internal and external obstacles to the organization where they carry out their activity.
Among the challenges that present and future pose to the nursing profession and the health professions in general, the following stand out:
- The challenge of the CAUTION paradigm, from a health perspective, as a Humanity need, common to all the different health professions and, as such, requiring a true multidisciplinary teamwork;
- New health problems, related to lifestyles, aging, chronic diseases, AIDS / HIV, drug addiction, poverty and social exclusion, among others;
- Change in the care setting that is characterized by the transfer of hospital care to community services and the reorganization of primary health care. This orientation to practice in the community challenges nurses to an increasingly autonomous, multipurpose and flexible performance, inserted in multidisciplinary teams in which the user / citizen participates in the decision making in health;
- Increasing the complexity of the professional situations to be managed and the evolution of the work organization requiring multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, which implies the emergence of "collective competence" resulting from the quality of cooperation between individual competences;
- The challenge related to the rights and duties of the citizen, diversity, differentiation and multiculturalism;
- The challenge of the quality of training and care, simultaneously an ethical and moral problem and a problem of credibility and professional dignity;
- The need for education for citizenship, moral development, participation in community life, the construction of a transnational identity;
- The "information society" and the need for new strategies for a new positioning of the school and the profession vis-à-vis the society in which we live, where "lifelong learning" is the dominant theme.
The World Health Organization (WHO), one of the leading international reference organizations in the field of Nursing, identifies the mission, premises and aspects of autonomous intervention:
"the nurse's primary mission in society is to help individuals, families, and groups determine and achieve their potential in the physical, mental, and social realm by doing so in the context of the environment in which they live and work. health care, disease prevention, planning and delivery of curative care and rehabilitation. Nursing encompasses the physical, mental, and social aspects of life as they affect health, disease, disability and death.
Nurses allow the active participation of the individual, his family and friends, the social group and the community, adequately in all aspects of health care, and thus encourage independence and self-determination. Nurses also work as partners of members of other professions involved in the provision of health services. "
The Nursing Setting, according to the International Council of Nurses, affirms autonomous and collaborative care, including health promotion, disease prevention, care in sickness and disability, and the dying process.
In the Code of Ethics for Nurses it is preambularly stated that the need for nursing is universal and that nurses have four fundamental responsibilities: to promote health, to prevent illness, to restore health and to alleviate suffering. According to the Regulation on the Professional Exercise of Nurses (Decree-Law no. 161/96, of September 4), the fundamental interventions are "health promotion, disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and social reintegration" (art. 8º) and the practice of nursing, in addition to clinical practice, considers the management, research, teaching, training and advisory areas (art. 9).
The competencies of the general care nurse are defined by the Order of Nurses (OE, 2003), according to the competencies that comprise the ICN Framework of Competencies for the Generalist Nurses of the International Council of Nurses (ICN).