Human anatomy and physiology courses include content on body structures, their relationships and the functions of human body organs (Lee and Wang, 2024). They lay the foundation for health sciences education (Royse et al., 2024), which is crucial for understanding clinical contexts. The anatomy and physiology courses provide knowledge of pathophysiology and inform all interventions in their management (Sorte et al., 2024). These courses may help students understand and articulate the rationale for nursing care provision (Montayre et al., 2019). A solid foundation in the biological sciences is critical for ensuring safe and effective nursing practice (Smith et al., 2020, Washmuth et al., 2020, Barton et al., 2021).

Anatomy and physiology may be integrated into undergraduate nursing programs as stand-alone, semester, or year courses in the programme's first and second years. In some contexts, they may be included in the field of bioscience, encompassing biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, genetics, physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology (Grønlien et al., 2021, Horiuchi-Hirose et al., 2023, Kyte et al., 2023). The number of credits allocated and content delivery usually depend on the recommendations of the accrediting body, the curricula structure, the philosophies and frameworks followed by nursing training institutions (World Health Organization, 2016). To guide nurse educators, frameworks consisting of anatomy and physiology learning outcomes and syllabi for use during the design and implementation of undergraduate nursing curricula are available (Connolly et al., 2018, Wood et al., 2020).

Students perceived the biosciences content, including anatomy and physiology, as intellectually challenging, which might have led to negative attitudes towards these courses, reduced learning engagement, increased anxiety and decreased motivation to learn (Evensen et al., 2020; Yeeles et al., 2024). Therefore, lectures, popular strategies in higher education, are insufficient for teaching biosciences courses (Craft et al., 2017b). Active learning methods that improve students’ engagement with content, understanding and knowledge retention are used to facilitate effective teaching and learning. Moreover, technology-enhanced learning offers interactive and immersive experiences, while blended learning approaches cater to diverse learning preferences, thereby enhancing learning experiences (Manchester and Roberts, 2025, Grønlien et al., 2021).

Despite the diverse learning and teaching approaches being implemented, gaps remain in applying anatomy and physiology classroom theory to clinical practice (Manchester and Roberts, 2024). Diverse teaching and learning approaches used in biosciences, including anatomy and physiology for nursing students, are classroom lectures, small-group tutorials and seminars (Evensen et al., 2020) and active learning approaches such as a flipped classroom (Knutstad et al., 2021); blended learning with a flipped classroom (Wesselink et al., 2025). Dissections, simulation-based learning and collaborative learning are used, along with visual resources such as drawings, PowerPoints, images, videos, animations and models, to facilitate a deeper understanding of the content (Kyte et al., 2023). Other approaches include concept maps (Mata et al., 2022) and gamification (Joseph and Natarajan, 2021).

Many students struggle to apply anatomy and physiology to clinical practice; this could be due to inadequate preparation (Satoh et al., 2023). The content of the theory being taught appears to be disconnected from clinical practice (Madhuvu et al., 2023, Zhang et al., 2025). Ratero et al. (2020) pointed out that human anatomy and physiology content is still taught in isolation in nursing courses today, leading to gaps in establishing links to other disciplines and professional reality, which hinders students' ability to learn and perform practically in supervised internships and clinical practice. The theory-practice gap is a universal issue and one of the most significant challenges in academic nursing (Saifan et al., 2021). These inconsistencies between classroom and practice make transferring learning from the classroom to clinical practice challenging (Carless-Kane & Nowell, 2023).

Difficulties in integrating anatomy and physiology with clinical practice may stem from a lack of hands-on activities in laboratories and tutorials (Wienhold and Branchaw, 2018). There is a tendency towards a superficial approach to teaching human anatomy content related to clinical practice (Ratero et al., 2020). Students often struggle with the complex content delivered in a limited time frame (Manchester and Roberts, 2025), hindering their efforts to connect theory with practice. This review aimed to critically examine and synthesise peer-reviewed scientific literature to describe how undergraduate nursing students can be prepared for the integration of anatomy and physiology into clinical practice.