Background: Being aware of what students experience during their first clinical practice will help both instructors and nurses prepare learning settings where students can have more positive experiences.
Objectives: To identify nursing students' views regarding their first clinical placement
Design :This is a descriptive study carried out to identify views of freshers in Nursing Department on clinical practices.
Settings: The study was carried out to identify nursing students' views regarding their first clinical placement with Freshers in Nursing Department in Ankara/Turkey.
Participants: The study composed of 278 students enrolled in Fundamentals of Nursing Course and completed first clinical practice in the spring term of 2014-2015 academic years. All students were tried to be reached without selecting sample, 253 students accepted to participate in the study.
Methods: Study was implemented after the final exam of Fundamentals of Nursing Course, following the completion of clinical practices. All students were informed in the same class about the study and asked to take part in. Those who accepted were asked to answer the questions. Questionnaires’ were collected after completion by the researchers.
Results: Age average of the students was 20.2. 85.4% of the students were female, 71% of them graduated from Anatolian High School, gpa of 85.4% of them was between 2.51 and 3.50. About 80% to 90% of the students evaluated the suitability for use and quantitative adequateness of equipment, number and professional competence of nurses, state of reaching healthcare staff when they need to as “Good” and “Very Good”. 60% of the students evaluated communication between nurse and patient as “Moderate” and “Bad”. 30.4% of the students stated that they did not observe communication between nurse and other members of healthcare staff. Students stated not to have observed nurses' fulfilling the role of defending patient (23.7%) and role of researcher (30%). Theoretical (80.6%) and practical readiness (76.3%) for clinical practice, starting and continuing communication with the patient (79.8%) and communication with the instructor (85.8%) were stated factors that affected their learning positively, but prejudices regarding clinical practice (38.7%), fear of making mistake (55.3%), prejudices towards clinical practice area (58.5%) and clinical practice grade anxiety (29.2%) were stated to be factors affecting their learning negatively.
Conclusions: Students’ learning affected by the healthcare professionals working with and the purposed clinical areas more likely negatively that being aware of what students experience during their first clinical practice will help instructors prepare settings where students can have more positive experiences. Instructors should also understand the effect of both environmental and individual factors on learning in clinical areas.