Research on the Level of Recognition of Global Health Competencies and International Development Cooperation among University Nursing Students in Korea

Objectives This mixed-method research aims to analyse the level of recognition of Global Health Competencies and International Development Cooperation among university nursing students in Korea and lead to a further in-depth study on variable levels of recognition dependent on the characteristics of the research subjects. Methods Research data was collected from 235 nursing students of all grades registered at a university located in City B from April 1 to 20, 2024. All subjects returned a structured survey and were divided into four groups for the focused group interview (4 times) and individual interview (2 times). The study data was analysed using the SPSS 26.0 Program and Hsieh and Shannon's conventional content analysis (2005) for qualitative research. Results The study reveals that various factors affect the results based on the general and empirical characteristics of the study subjects; for Global Health Competencies, these factors are grades, experience in educational programs for underdeveloped countries, overseas volunteer service, taking courses for global health or similar subjects. Similarly, factors such as grades, experience in foreign aid and development programs, educational programs for underdeveloped countries and overseas volunteer service affect the differential recognition of Official Development Assistance. From the qualitative research, the overall recognition of the study subjects on global health was categorized into four categories: 1) global health learning, 2) global health competency, 3) global health activity and 4) international development cooperation. Conclusions With this study, we found a meaningful correlation between the level of recognition of Global Health Competencies and International Development Cooperation among university nursing students and their completion of relevant courses at the university. Therefore, we expect there is a need for further studies focusing on learning practical tools to support global health competencies and establishing structured training courses.