Evaluating the efficacy of an integrated curriculum on adolescent health and development for pre-service nursing education in Hong Kong Regina L.T. Lee a, * , Thomas K.S. Wong a , Naeema Al-Gasseer b , Cynthia S.T. Wu a , Sunshine S.S. Chan a , Stanley K.K. Ko c , Tony M.F. Chan a a School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China b Former Senior Scientist for Nursing and Midwifery, World Health Organization, Headquarter, Geneva, Switzerland c Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macau, Special Administrative Region, China Accepted 24 October 2005 Summary Background: An integrated adolescent curriculum on health and development (ADH) was implemented in a pre-service nursing programme in a university. Aim: This study examined the efficacy of an ADH curricular framework in improving the competency variables of student nurses in delivering ADH services. Method: The design of the study was quasi-experimental with the systematically designed ADH training curriculum as an intervention. Pre- and post-tests incorporating an experimental group and a control group for a sample of 101 student nurses were used. Findings: Reports from 50 student nurses in the experimental group indicated that there was a significant increase from the pre-test to the post-test phase in the total score for the variables in the ADH Competency Checklist (Z =  5.71, p < 0.001) and its four subscales: the professional development subscale (Z =  5.37, p < 0.001), the psychosocial and physical well-being subscale (Z =  5.66, p < 0.001), the health behav- iours and lifestyles subscale (Z =  5.07, p < 0.001), and the identity and reproductive health subscale (Z =  4.86, p < 0.001). Significant changes were detected in the ADH competency variables for the control group in the post-test phase. Conclusion: The findings reveal that the systematic integration of ADH in the nursing curriculum had the positive impact of increasing the competency of student nurses for the examined variables.  c 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KEYWORDS Adolescent health; Competency; Integrated nursing curriculum 0260-6917/$ - see front matter  c 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2005.10.008 * Corresponding author. Fax: +852 2364 9663. E-mail address: hsrlee@inet.polyu.edu.hk (R.L.T. Lee). Nurse Education Today (2006) 26, 286–297 intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/nedt Nurse Education Today