To Örebro University

There is no consensus regarding the required education content and competence needed for professionals working in the emergency medical services and only a few countries in Europe staff ambulances with registered nurses. This study aimed to identify common core content in Swedish, Finnish and Belgian university curricula in the education on advanced level for registered nurses in ambulance care and to describe the teachers' perception of the necessary content for the profession as a registered nurse in ambulance care.

A deductive research design was used. Three Universities, one from each country; Sweden, Finland and Belgium, participated. Data was generated from curricula and interviews with teachers and analyzed with different approaches of qualitative content analysis.

The results showed commonness with respect to core content; the emphasis was mainly on medical knowledge but the content concerning contextual subjects differed between the three universities.

The teachers, however, aimed for the students' to acquire a broad competence in clinical reasoning by implementing theory into practice, as well as developing the students' personal aptitude and instilling a scientific awareness. The results suggest that it is possible to create a common curriculum for training of RNs for working in ambulance care.