African emergency nursing curriculum: : Development of a curriculum model

Abstract

The African Emergency Nursing Curriculum (AENC) provides a consensus document to guide the development of harmonised standards of emergency nursing theory and practice across Africa for the benefit of the emergency patient population. The need to strengthen emergency care systems to address the global burden of disease is increasingly recognised (Wolf et al., 2012). Most low-income countries lack organised emergency care systems and therefore suffer the highest rates of injury, from primary health burdens such as maternal death due to complications of pregnancy, and acute medical complications of communicable diseases involving tuberculosis, malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (Reynolds et al., 2014). Conditions requiring surgical intervention inevitably add to this growing challenge to emergency care systems. Annually, worldwide injuries contribute to a leading public health concern. One hundred million people sustain injuries; 5 million people die from violence and injury; and 90% of the global burden of violence and injury mortality occurs in low-middle income countries (World Health Organization, 2007). It is predicted that by 2030 road accidents will be the fifth leading cause of death in the developing world, with violent crime and conflict contributing significantly to this public health emergency (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2010). This critically important prediction requires pre-hospital, emergency/trauma and rehabilitation services to be implemented and/or strengthened as soon as possible. This paper outlines the development of the AENC as part of a strategic action plan of the African Federation of Emergency Medicine (AFEM) Consensus Meeting held in Cape Town in November 2013 (Reynolds et al., 2014) to address the increasing African emergency care burden and other disease burdens addressed in the World Health Organization Millennium Development Goals (World Health Organization, 2015).