Nurses’ perception of their learning needs to deliver CVD prevention programmes

Aims: To determine nurses’ perception of the knowledge and skills needed to deliver cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention programmes and to describe their continuing professional development (CPD) needs. Design: Two cross-sectional descriptive surveys using two postal questionnaires were conducted with first, past students (n=83) of the ‘Managing Cardiovascular Risk Factors’ course and second, practice nurses (PN) (n=690), taken from a purposeful sample of Scottish health boards. Results: Past students rated knowledge and skills possibly needed to deliver CVD care. Those categorized as ‘advanced clinical’ were rated significantly higher than ‘management’ or ‘nurse development’ (P Conclusions: Nurses perceiving they had a high input into CVD care or who had completed courses on CVD were more likely to seek further higher-level education. This has implications for CVD CPD delivery.