Aim(s): Qualified clinical practice education is critical for competent nurse graduates. However, in the Kyrgyz Republic, nurses suffered from the low level of nursing competency due to lack of standardized clinical education. The study aimed to assess demands of nursing practice education reform and to establish the curriculum reform for clinical nursing practice education.

Method(s): The curricular modeling was performed by methodological study including needs assessment by mixed-method and the course validation process. Three focus group meetings including faculties' brainstorming workshops and university headquarter interviews were conducted. A content analysis of those focus group interviews was done and summarized content was generated. Surveys using questionnaires from the literature reviews were done targeting students, graduates, and leaders from hospitals and public health offices. The new curriculum was framed with nursing or health replacing the previous courses titled assisting work. Working program and course outlines, teaching and learning methods were developed and validated by experts.

Result(s): The reformed curriculum included major principles and course schedules for nursing students. The goal of the developed curriculum was to enhance clinical nursing competencies for responding to graduates’ demands. Representative courses such as fundamental nursing, child health, women’s health, and community health were established and implemented. Students reported high level of course satisfaction and improved competencies. Community health practice was the first introduced course and other courses were transformed from former nursing assisting courses. Practicum equipment and educational materials were provided by an official development assistance project and nursing faculties of specific subjects using the provided materials developed utilization strategies and corresponding manuals in their course outlines.

Conclusion(s): The reformed curriculum and educational resources for nursing practice can provide nursing students with improved practice opportunities resulting in better health care with more clinically competent nurses.

Keywords: Clinical practice; Curriculum development; Curriculum reform; Nursing practice

* Funding statement: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Education) (No. NRF-2020H1C8A1048049, NRF-2022H1A7A2A02000011).