Baccalaureate Nursing Students’ Lived Experiences of Theory-Practice Gap (TPG) in a Tertiary Health Institution in Enugu: A Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

Theory-practice gap is viewed in literature as a general problem ravaging nursing profession in developing countries and there is problem with comprehension of the concepts. This study aimed to describe the Baccalaureate Nursing Students’ lived experiences of TPG during clinical practice in a tertiary health institution in Enugu Nigeria. The researchers sought to address three objectives: To assess the baccalaureate nursing students’ understanding of TPG during clinical practice, to explore their experiences on the areas where the gap exists and to examine their perceptions of the strategies for closing the gap. A qualitative descriptive phenomenological design was adopted to explore 20 baccalaureate nursing students who were at 500 level of study. The class level of the students was purposively sampled, while their exact number was recruited using snowball sampling. A semi-structured interview guide was the instrument for data collection. Data were collected using audio-tape recorder and face-to-face in-depth individual interviews, and analyzed using conventional content analysis. Four broad themes and thirteen subthemes emerged from the results of this study, namely: Understanding TPG (interpreting); Experiencing areas of TPG such as nursing procedures (predominantly wound-dressing, vital-signs checking, medication, bed-making, admission and discharges, hand-hygiene practices, use of nursing-process in patients’ care and others), educational planning/administration and relationship/attitudes, Perceiving response to TPG (training and retraining, interactive relationship, behavior reformation, resource provision, supervisory roles, system reformation, best strategy); and Worst experiences in responding to TPG ( poor resource provision and routinizing wrong practices).