Preparation of Australian Nurses for Contemporary Disability Care: A Desktop Review

Approximately 18% of Australians experience disability, with significant health inequities documented in this population. Despite nursing’s crucial role in addressing these inequities, questions remain about nurses’ preparedness to work effectively with people with disability. The review assessed Australian nursing education’s approach to prepare its graduate nurses for disability care in today’s Australia. Using a rigorous desktop analysis methodology, the review evaluated the publicly available undergraduate nursing degree curricula materials from all 32 Australian public universities that offered a preregistration nursing degree in 2024. The review found 50% of nursing degree curricula course materials omitted to mention disability in their publicly accessible course materials. Just four universities included a unit/module with ‘disability’ in the title. Discussion of disability in course content tended to focus on physical disability, take a biomedical perspective and omit contemporary disability issues and services important to nursing, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme. These findings suggest an urgent need for curriculum reform to meet disability healthcare needs and achieve government health equity policy objectives. Recommendations include embedding contemporary disability content across curricula and involving people with lived experience in curriculum development. Further recommendations include mandatory disability education accreditation standards and the reintroduction of specialist disability nursing qualifications in preregistration nursing.