Abstract
Background: Despite the Joining Forces initiative and recently published veteran care competencies, nursing students and graduates are often unprepared to care for veterans who have unique service-connected illnesses and injuries.
Purpose: The purpose was to evaluate identified content gaps in prelicensure nursing textbooks with the veteran care competencies knowledge, skills, and attitude (KSA) domains.
Methods: A secondary qualitative analysis was conducted of veteran content in prelicensure nursing textbooks.
Results: The skills and attitude domains of veteran care competencies were poorly addressed in nursing textbooks. Overall, the knowledge domain was adequately covered; however, most had limited connection with veterans and veteran care. Competency-focused recommendations for expanding and enhancing veteran content, KSAs, and teaching strategies are offered.
Conclusions: Prelicensure textbooks met the knowledge domain for each veteran competency. Overcoming content gaps needed to achieve requisite skills and attitudes requires interaction with veterans through clinical immersion experiences in various care settings.