Minimal early training opportunities for nurses and midwives in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) are limiting care options for Australian women.
A SPHERE (Centre of Research Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women in Primary Care) study of Australian undergraduate nursing and midwifery programs in 37 universities, published in Nurse Education in Practice, found limited content on SRH and nothing on abortion care.*
The review of university courses, along with a second published study about nurse-led SRH care in rural Australia, coincides with a growing Federal Government emphasis on long acting reversible contraception (LARC) provision by nurse practitioners, and consideration of similar rebates for endorsed midwives.
The second study, about the nurse-led model of care, published by the Journal of Advanced Nursing, identified the need for more SRH training, among other measures, to increase the role of nurses in remote and regional areas where SRH services are often scant.
SPHERE research fellow Dr Sharon James said nursing and midwifery programs needed to consider SRH education as an essential element of their qualifications.
"It is essential that nurses receive SRH education and training prior to registration and not as an add-on," Dr James said.
"Sexual and reproductive health is a core aspect of all women's lives. Early SRH training will create a nursing workforce that can support women's SRH right from the beginning of these nurses' careers and provide opportunities to specialise in this much-needed field."
The review of SRH curriculum in university courses supports the World Health Organization's global priority of improving the quality of SRH curricula in nursing.
Dr James said Australian nurses and midwives play a key role in providing SRH care, often serving as the first point of contact for people seeking these services.
"To deliver comprehensive and responsive preventive care, they need to acquire fundamental SRH competencies during undergraduate training," Dr James said.
"Therefore, it is crucial to incorporate SRH care, including abortion care, into training curricula by consulting experts, industry partners and academic literature to determine content components."
Training opportunities for nurses is particularly lacking in Australia's rural and remote areas where the adoption of nurse-led SRH care, as proposed in the nurse-led model of care study, would be especially useful, given that access to women's SRH services is often poor or non-existent.
The nurse-led model of care study, involving interviews with a range of health practitioners from rural and remote areas, highlights long waitlists for training, considerable distances to travel to training centres, and the high costs associated with training.
*The review of undergraduate courses reviewed all Australian universities in the period from November 2022 to March 2023 - covering 37 universities, and 92 units from 86 pre-registration programs.
Read the full papers in Science Direct: DOI: 10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104267 and in the Wiley online library: DOI: 10.1111/jan.16777
*Please note: A case study is available upon request.
