Abstract
Introduction: Nursing education in Europe is undergoing the development toward greater comparability under the Bologna process. Based on our mutual experiences from teaching in Slovenia and Sweden, the students' perspectives on knowledge and nursing practice became an issue. The aim was to explore Slovenian and Swedish undergraduate nursing students' perceptions of knowledge needed for future practice.
 Methods: A qualitative study design was applied. A questionnaire with open ended questions was used to collect opinions of 174 nursing students from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and 109 nursing students from the University of Umea, Sweden. Textual data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.
 Results: Four subcategories were identified, related to the content of knowledge: knowledge about 'bodies and diseases', about 'people and communication'; and to its purpose: 'to do nursing' and 'to be a nurse'. The main theme, 'integration', indicated the students' awareness of the complexity of their future work and the need for a wide integrated knowledge.
 Discussion and conclusion: There were more similarities than differences between the Slovenian and Swedish students included in the study. The students were aware of the complex responsibilities and expressed the need for integrating various competences. Interprofessional education should become a constitutive part of nursing education programmes.
Highlights
Nursing education in Europe is undergoing the development toward greater comparability under the Bologna process
We start by outlining the way nursing knowledge is developed during nursing education, and how nursing education is provided in Slovenia and Sweden
As studies reflecting the students' perspectives are scarce, the aim of this study was to explore the Slovenian and Swedish undergraduate nursing students' perceptions of knowledge needed for future nursing practice
Summary
Nursing education in Europe is undergoing the development toward greater comparability under the Bologna process. Based on our mutual experiences from teaching in Slovenia and Sweden, the students' perspectives on knowledge and nursing practice became an issue. The aim was to explore Slovenian and Swedish undergraduate nursing students' perceptions of knowledge needed for future practice. Salminen and colleagues (2010) underlined the need for harmonizing nursing education and pointed out that differences between countries in Europe presented challenges for the future, such as the development of cross-cultural collaboration and clinical learning environments as well as the role of patients and teacher education. The process of harmonization includes the need to reflect on the concept of nursing education and its planned outcome, the knowledge for nursing practice. Based on experiences from visiting both countries, Slovenia and Sweden, during the last decade, and from teaching and sharing experiences with colleagues during our stays, we became interested in differences and similarities in nursing concepts. We start by outlining the way nursing knowledge is developed during nursing education, and how nursing education is provided in Slovenia and Sweden
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