Building the capacity of nursing professionals in Cambodia: Insights from a bridging programme for faculty development

To upgrade nursing instruction capacity in Cambodia, two bridging programmes were opened for the Bachelor of Science in Nursing simultaneously in‐country and out‐of‐country (Thailand). A descriptive qualitative study was conducted to assess effectiveness of both programmes jointly and to explore needs concerning the further development of nursing education. This study included interviews with 34 current or previous programme participants (nursing instructors or hospital preceptors) and 10 managers of collaborating institutions. New learning content, personal outcomes, challenges and obstacles and future needs were qualitatively coded to create categories and subcategories of data. Findings show that programme participants were most influenced by the new content areas (e.g. nursing theory and professionalism), active teaching–learning strategies and the full‐time educational immersion afforded by the out‐of‐country programme. Programme participants who had returned to their workplaces also identified on‐going needs for employing new active teaching–learning approaches, curriculum revision, national standardization of nursing curricula and improvements in the teaching–learning infrastructure. Another outcome of this study is the development of a theoretical model for Nursing Capacity Building in Developing Countries that describes the need for intermediate and long‐term planning as well as using both Bottom‐Up and Edge‐Pulling strategies.