Professional Design of a Cybersecurity Training Curriculum for Nigerian Healthcare Workers

Healthcare workers are the primary human element in hospital cybersecurity, and professionally designed training curricula that address the specific threat landscape and regulatory context of Nigerian health institutions are needed to fill the current workforce cybersecurity skills gap. This study designed a cybersecurity training curriculum for healthcare workers in Nigerian teaching hospitals and general hospitals, with reference contexts from the Federal Capital Territory, Kano State, and Enugu State. A professional curriculum design methodology was employed, drawing on a training needs assessment survey of 200 healthcare workers across six hospitals in the three locations, review of WHO health information security training standards, UK Health Education England cybersecurity curriculum, and HIPAA security rule training requirements. The needs assessment confirmed that 82.5 percent had never received healthcare-specific cybersecurity training, 68.5 percent were unaware of their hospital's information security policy, and clinical staff showed higher awareness gaps than administrative staff in 12 of 15 assessed knowledge domains. The curriculum developed covers six modules over two days: healthcare cybersecurity threat landscape, patient data protection obligations under NDPA, electronic health record security, mobile device and remote access security, recognising and reporting security incidents, and healthcare social engineering and phishing defence. Expert review by ten health informatics and security specialists confirmed the curriculum's clinical appropriateness. Recommendations include mandatory delivery through annual CPD programmes and integration into nursing and medical internship orientation.

Keywords: healthcare cybersecurity training, healthcare workers, training curriculum, Nigeria, NDPA compliance