Clinical Placement: Experiences, School and Hospital-based Gaps and Challenges of Undergraduate Nursing Students of the University of Cape Coast

Abstract

The goal of the study was to assess the school-based and hospital-based gaps and challenges among undergraduate nursing students. The specific objectives of the study was identify the gaps between school-based and hospital-based learning, explore students’ clinical practice experiences and to determine the challenges students encounter during clinical placement. The Explanatory Mixed Method Design was used for the study. For the quantitative part, the simple random sampling technique was used to select 141 study participants. Questionnaires were used to collect numeric data. Quantitative data was analysed using IBM SPSS version 21. For the qualitative part, purposive sampling was used to select five participants for interviewing. Braun and Clarke (2006) steps for thematic analysis was employed to analyse the responses for the interviewing. The qualitative data was used to validate the quantitative results.The findings from the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study point to common gaps and challenges and experiences of nursing students. The findings showed a consensus on differences in types of equipment and availability of equipment, learning experiences and clinical nursing practices between the hospital and school settings. Challenges with students attending more errands, poor supervision and combining school and academic work were also highlighted in the two data sets. However, the two data sets suggest that nurses create an enabling environment for the students to meet their learning objectives. This study has highlighted areas that require improvement and further research. Gaps and challenges with school learning and clinical placement in terms of making students aware of their objectives, availability of equipment, ensuring proper supervision and feedback need to be addressed.