Exploring Danish clinical nurses’ experience with personalised medicine

Abstract

Personalised or precision medicine is expected to change healthcare significantly in the future. Growing attention is being devoted internationally as to how this development affects nursing care and demands educational initiatives for nurses. In Denmark, a lack of such educational initiatives seems evident. The aim of this study was to inquire into Danish nurses’ understanding of and experience with personalised medicine (PM) in their daily practice. Furthermore, the study comprised a search for courses about personalised medicine/precision medicine that foster educational inspiration. A questionnaire was distributed among Danish nurses. The respondents represented a wide spectrum of specialties. More than half of the respondents (52%) experienced daily or weekly that PM was part of the patient’s trajectory. More than a third (36%) encountered situations in which PM impacted patients’ treatment daily or weekly. More than four in every ten respondents reported that they collected family history data about diseases at least monthly. About two-thirds (66%) found education in PM to be relevant for nurses, and nearly half of the respondents (47%) indicated that they would find it very or somewhat relevant themselves to receive continuing PM education and training. We found only very few published papers describing educational PM interventions for nurses. In contrast, we found numerous online descriptions of PM courses for nurses. In conclusion, this study indicated that many Danish nurses encounter PM in their daily work. However, their expressed need for further knowledge on this subject cannot be accommodated through the current education offered.