“We’ll check vital signs only till we finish the school”: experiences of student nurses regarding intra-semester clinical placement in Ghana

Abstract

BackgroundClinical practicum is an integral part of nursing education because it provides students with opportunities to perform nursing care and practice specific nursing tasks. In Ghana, little is known about the experiences of baccalaureate student nurses with regard to intra-semester clinical practicum. This study therefore, explored perceptions, challenges, and how the intra-semester clinical practicum affects the learning process of student nurses in a private university in Ghana.MethodsExploratory descriptive phenomenological design was used. Nine in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions were conducted for baccalaureate student nurses in their second, third and fourth years of study. Only those who have attended intra-semester clinical practicum for at least two semesters in the course of their study were recruited. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants. The sample size was based on data saturation, however, a total of 33 participants were recruited. Data was analysed using content analysis technique.ResultsThe findings show that baccalaureate student nurses perceive the intra-semester clinical practicum as beneficial. It affords the opportunity to translate theoretical knowledge into practice concurrently. However, students recounted their stressful experiences during the clinical period which negatively affected their academic work. Additionally, staff nurses assigned the students to do menial jobs instead of appropriate nursing tasks.ConclusionsA review of the “block” method in which students will go to clinicals for a stipulated number of consecutive days in a month and then resume lectures, is worth considering.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12912-018-0292-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Experiences of Ghanaian Student Nurses’ and Midwives’ during Clinical Practice in the Kumasi Metropolis: An Ethnographic Study

“…Also, inadequate supervision and poor interpersonal relationship exists between students' and clinical supervisors and that negatively impact students' learning outcomes. These findings are in line with as some studies findings [2,3,15] have reported a lack of proper supervision.…”

“…Generally, the study findings revealed showed some congruence with other studies internationally Abdulmutalib et al [12], Bäck et al, [13], Mbakaya et al [14] and locally in findings of Adjei et al [15] that students' exposure to clinical practicum have impact on students learning outcome. Positively in our study, majority of the study participants expressed some satisfaction with the clinical exposure.…”

Exploring Student Nurses’ Learning Experience in the Clinical Setting: A Literature Review

“…There are several issues that prevent conducive learning environment to occur. Students explained that they were unable to practice certain skills due to lack of resources, lack of diversity of cases and high number of students in one area 8,11 . Also, the students were left unsupervised during clinical placement and as a result, adverse incidents sometimes occurred which confirmed that it is important for the student to be supervised during clinical placement 12 .…”

“…The student-nurse relationship plays a role in the learning experience for the student nurses, it can either be a positive or negative experience depending on what kind of relationship that the student and nurse had. For a positive and friendly relationship between students and nurses it can increases the students' self-confidence and learning 9 , whereas poor student-nurse relationship had negative impact on the students' skill acquisition on the ward 11 . Even though Jahanpour et al 9 claimed that a positive and friendly student-nurse relationship can facilitate the students' learning, however, in their study, the relationship from the nurses was not respectful in such a way that the nurses did not trust the student's work and they blamed the student if anything happened in the ward.…”

“…The nurses' negative attitude towards the student and their mistrust caused an unsupportive atmosphere which was unpleasant to the students 10 . It was suggested by Adjei et al 11 that the learning environment was not friendly due to the lack of bonding between the students and the staff nurses. This implied that the students should create a bond with the nurses as it would be very beneficial for their learning and there must be reasons for the nurses' negative behaviors toward the student but it was not stated in any of the articles reviewed.…”