Evaluation of public health science in the graduate community health nursing curriculum.

The purpose of this article is to describe and evaluate a unique course in Public Health Science that has recently been implemented in our College of Nursing. This course seeks to provide a synthesis of public health and nursing. The course description as well as the course objectives are outlined. A 22-item questionnaire was developed to obtain demographic information regarding the students enrolled in the course, their community health experience prior to entering the graduate program, their clinical area of specialization, reasons for enrollment in the course, strengths and weaknesses of the course, the degree to which the course met the objectives, and recommendations for future courses in Public Health Science. The findings suggest that the content of Public Health Science has been integrated into the graduate community health nursing program with much success.