Registered Nurses’ Experiences with Clinical Teaching Environment in Malawi

Abstract

Clinical practice remains an integral part of nursing curriculum because clinical practice provides students with an opportunity to achieve professional competence. Creating a conducive learning environment for students is responsibility of academic staff, clinical nurses and students alike. However, studies in Malawi have reported poor clinical learning environment for students. This study therefore aimed at exploring nurses' experiences of clinical teaching environment in Malawi. The study used a qualitative research design utilizing a descriptive phenomenological approach. Participants were randomly identified from teaching hospitals across Malawi by nursing managers to attend a six week clinical preceptorship training at one University nursing college. Immediately before commencement of the training, participants were invited to voluntarily participate in a focus group discussion pertaining to their experiences with clinical environment. We conducted focus group discussions with 9 trainees in 2013 and 12 trainees in 2014 training cohorts. Findings reveal that nurses meet a number of challenges in teaching students in the clinical area. Four themes emerged from the study, namely, inadequate faculty support, poor clinical teaching environment, poor competence among nurses and unsupportive working conditions. Nurses require support from academic staff and their managers to ensure a conducive clinical teaching environment.

A nurse‐led intervention improves detection and management of AKI in Malawi

“…Data from our group concludes that competing health priorities in a setting of resource limitation and lack of health policy advocacy for detecting and managing AKI are all major factors in the AKI knowledge gap in QECH (Evans et al 2015). Our experience of nurse training also correlates with similar findings in Malawi in general (Bvumbwe et al 2015), i.e. poor teaching environment, unsupportive working environment and lack of knowledge of trainers.…”

“…Our experience of nurse training also correlates with similar findings in Malawi in general (Bvumbwe et al . ), i.e. poor teaching environment, unsupportive working environment and lack of knowledge of trainers.…”

Nursing and midwifery students’ experiences and perception of their clinical learning environment in Malawi: a mixed-method study

“…Literature suggests that nurse educators are expected to accompany student nurses to the clinical area. However, this is often not possible in Malawi due to the shortage of academic staff in nursing training institutions [45]. Lack of guidance and supervision may lead to nursing students learning incorrect procedures, become incompetent and lose interest in the nursing profession as they feel frustrated [46].…”

Nursing and midwifery students’ experiences and perception of their clinical learning environment in Malawi: A mixed method study

“…Literature suggests that nurse educators are expected to accompany student nurses to the clinical area. However, this is often not possible in Malawi due to the shortage of academic staff in nursing training institutions [44]. Lack of guidance and supervision may lead to nursing students learning incorrect procedures, become incompetent and lose interest in the nursing profession as they feel frustrated [45].…”