Welcome to the course

Nurses play an important role in providing healthcare around the world and, in some countries, form more than 50% of the healthcare workforce.

They are a fundamental component of front-line staff whose work is necessary for delivery of safe and effective care.

Yet there is a global shortage, with international organisations citing working conditions and image as contributing factors to nurses leaving the profession and to their initial recruitment.

Over the next two weeks, through a blend of videos, tasks and online discussions, we’ll be drawing on the latest research findings and experiences of nurses from a range of countries to examine contemporary issues relevant to nurses.

This short course is a free two-week taster course for Coventry University’s MSc Nursing degree.

This week

Through this week’s activities you will:

• identify the key challenges facing nursing today
• discuss situations causing stress in nursing and approaches to management
• consider the nature of violence in nursing and identify sources of support
• explore the pros and cons of migration and discuss strategies to minimise loss

To get the very best learning experience, take a look at these tips and tools for social learning. Don’t forget, while robust debate is encouraged, it’s important that you follow the FutureLearn code of conduct and are respectful of your fellow learners.

When you reach the end of a step and have understood everything, click the ‘Mark as complete’ button. This will update your progress page, and will help you to keep track of which steps you’ve done. Any steps you’ve completed will turn blue on your ‘To do’ list.

You can check your progress page by clicking the progress icon at the top of any step, where you’ll see what percentage of the course steps you’ve marked as complete.