Nurses' and Midwives' Experiences of Clinical Supervision in Practice: A Scoping Review

Abstract

AimTo understand the extent and type of evidence that exists related to nurses' and midwives' experiences of participating in clinical supervision and ascertain how clinical supervision is defined in the literature.DesignA scoping review of peer reviewed research.Data SourcesCINAHL Complete (EBSCOhost), MEDLINE (Ovid), PsycINFO (EBSCO), Embase (Elsevier) and the Cochrane Library were searched for relevant articles published between 2010 and 2024.Review MethodsThe scoping review followed the JBI methodology.Reporting MethodPRISMA‐ScR.ResultsForty‐three articles were included, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods studies and three reviews were found describing nurses' and midwives' experiences of clinical supervision. The studies identified were carried out across 15 countries and reported on experiences of group clinical supervision, one to one clinical supervision or both, more recent studies included a focus on group clinical supervision. All definitions found are reported, and although these varied, there were frequently used terms common in many.ConclusionAlthough some evidence exists on how nurses and midwives experience clinical supervision gaps in evidence and detail of supervision practices remain. Inconsistencies of approach to this practice remain and specific detail relating to clinical supervision explored in existing research is frequently lacking. The lack of a universally accepted definition highlighted may influence inconsistences in clinical supervision, key terms identified in this review may assist in the development of a definition. Further research into this support is required to establish its value in practice.ImpactThis scoping review progresses the ongoing debate that clinical supervision is a valuable support for nurses' and midwives' but the absence of evidence is an indication that clinical supervision is not fully understood nor is visible in practice. To this end, this review highlights that the lack of consensus on a clinical supervision definition causes ambiguity thus reducing the use of this support for nurses and midwives.Patient or Public ContributionThere was no patient or public contribution to this paper as it is a review paper that seeks information on research available on a professional support.Protocol registration@ Open science Framework: identifier 10.17605/OSF.IO/QNKUR