Nursing Students ’Perception of Clinical Experience

Nursing students ’perception of their clinical experience provides information to the nurse educators for designing more effective strategies to improve the clinical learning of the nursing students. The main objective of this study was to assess the nursing students ’perception about their clinical experience in College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore to provide recommendations based on the findings to improve the clinical experience of the students.

Qualitative study design was adopted with the use of focus group discussions to assess the students ’perception about their clinical experience. The participants were the group of volunteers consisting of 7 to 10 students from each class of undergraduate nursing students of both Degree and Diploma programmes excluding the first year. The focus group interviews were conducted at midyear month and last month of the academic year. Debriefing notes were made by the observer after each focus group discussion. The discussions were tape recorded and later transcribed.

The content of the tape and the notes of the observer were compared and checked to include the nonverbal cues of the participants. The researcher analyzed the data looking for the significant statements and codes and categorized them into different themes.

The following six themes emerged from the data: Clinical anxiety, clinical supervision, clinical teaching, clinical requirement, professional role and clinical environment which were considered important factors in clinical experience

The result of the study showed that the nursing students were not completely satisfied with their clinical experience. They experienced anxiety and stress and brought out suggestions to improve their clinical learning.