Students' views about supervision of nursing students by clinical staff

Abstract

Globally, clinical supervision is a fundamental aspect of pre-registration learning and professional development in nursing as it helps to integrate the knowledge gained during the theoretical component of the course. The aim of this study is to explore Maltese nursing students' views about clinical supervision by clinical staff during their practice placement. A self-administered questionnaire was used which generated both qualitative and quantitative data. Two student groups, 24 second year and 26 third year B.Sc. (Hons) nursing students were approached and invited to take part voluntarily in this study and 39 students, 78% of the sample completed the questionnaire. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive analysis while the qualitative data was thematically analysed. Findings showed that respondents view educators from IHC as the most important people to the learning in practice this might be due to the fact that educators would be the people responsible to assess nursing students in their practical examinations. On the other hand an informal type of clinical supervision is being employed in the clinical area by nursing staff as the participants also stated that the most people to provide clinical supervision were the nursing staff themselves, although it seems that this type of clinical supervision is not being valued enough by students. On the other hand mixed views about the quality of clinical supervision emerged in this study. Various issues emerged from the findings regarding nursing students' views on the quality of clinical supervision; these are the frequency of clinical supervision, benefits and supporting factors, hindering factors and perceived learning which were all discussed in view light of the way that clinical supervision was defined by Maltese students.