Clinical learning environment and graduating nursing students' competence: A multi‐country cross‐sectional study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore nursing students' perceptions of their final clinical learning environment and its association with their self‐assessed competence, satisfaction with nursing education, and turnover intentions at graduation in six European countries. A multi‐country comparative cross‐sectional study was conducted with nursing students (n = 1746) from the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain using the Nurse Competence Scale and the Clinical Learning Environment and Supervision scale. Nursing students' overall perceptions of their final clinical learning environment and supervision were positive in all the countries studied. The correlation between the students' perceptions of their final clinical learning environment and competence was statistically significant and positive. Satisfaction with the nursing program and clinical practicum and no consideration of career change were related to positive perceptions of the final clinical learning environment. Highlighting the importance of the supervisory relationship and pedagogical atmosphere, nursing students' positive perceptions of the final clinical learning environment and supervision contribute to a better level of self‐assessed competence and satisfaction with the nursing program and clinical practicum, leading to lower turnover intentions.

The nurse teacher’s pedagogical cooperation with students, the clinical learning environment and supervision in clinical practicum: a European cross-sectional study of graduating nursing students

“…In all participating countries, the GNSs’ experiences of NT cooperation, the CLE and supervision were rated highly, indicating positive experiences. This is in line with earlier European studies with students in different stages of their studies [ 8 , 24 , 36 ]. The final clinical practicum of GNSs should provide them with positive experiences and opportunities to face both the reality of nursing practice and the role of the nurse [ 2 ].…”

“…Significant differences in GNSs’ experiences of CLE and supervision were identified between the countries. These differences may be due to national disparities in the implementations [ 36 ] between educational institutions and between the countries involved. It is noteworthy that Ireland was the only country where the length of the last clinical practicum was constant, set to a long period of 36-weeks by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland’s (NMBI) Standards and Requirements [ 50 ].…”

“…The total response rate was moderate for the electronic survey, less than half (49%) of the total sample, which is better than the common low response rate associated with electronic surveys [ 59 ]. On the European level, the sample may be considered representative; student gender and age distribution were rather similar to European nursing students in general [ 19 , 36 ]. GNSs in Spain had the lowest response rate at 36%, which should be taken into account when considering the findings of this study.…”

“…In general, European nursing students have reported clinical practicum as being a positive experience [ 8 , 24 ]. Despite this, there are several studies reporting variations in students’ clinical practicum experiences between countries, especially NT cooperation and factors associated with it, which remain underexposed in the literature [ 8 , 17 , 24 , 36 ]. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore and compare GNSs’ experiences of NT cooperation, the CLE and supervision in their final clinical practicum, and to analyze factors associated with these experiences in six European countries.…”

The relationship between clinical placement duration and students' satisfaction with the quality of supervision and learning environment: A mediation analysis

“…In this study, the term “polytechnic” is used to describe higher professional colleges that tend not to have a tradition of being research led, in contrast with university colleges. Previous studies have reported that the mean clinical placement duration in the same ward is 6 weeks (Tomietto et al, 2016), ranging during the final clinical training before graduation from 2 weeks in the Czech Republic to 18 weeks in Portugal (Visiers‐Jiménez et al, 2021). Therefore, there is no consensus on what the optimum duration of a clinical placement is with respect to promoting students' clinical learning or what the extent of the influence of placement duration on students' overall satisfaction with their clinical training is.…”