Abstract
BackgroundCaring is the core of nursing and should be cultivated in student nurses. However, there are serious concerns about the caring concern in the clinical environment and in nursing education. Clinical instructors are ideally positioned to care for student nurses so that they in turn, can learn to care for their patients. MethodsA descriptive, comparative, cross-sectional and correlational quantitative research design with convenience sampling was conducted to describe the perceptions of junior student nurses (n = 148) and senior student nurses (n = 168) regarding clinical instructor caring. A structured self administered questionnaire using the Nursing Student Perceptions of Instructor Caring (NSPIC) (Wade & Kasper, 2006) was used. Descriptive statistics and hypotheses testing using parametric and non parametric methods were conducted. The reliability of the NSPIC was determined. ResultsRespondents had a positive perception of their clinical instructors' caring. No relationship could be found between the course the respondents were registered for, the frequency of contact with a clinical instructor, the ages of the respondents and their perceptions of clinical instructor caring. The NSPIC was found to be reliable if one item each from two of the subscales were omitted. ConclusionsStudent nurses perceived most strongly that a caring clinical instructor made them feel confident, specifically when he/she showed genuine interest in the patients and their care, and when he/she made them feel that they could be successful.
Highlights
Caring is the core of nursing and should be cultivated in student nurses
The purpose of this article is to describe the findings of a study on the perceptions of student nurses enrolled at a private nursing education institution in South Africa about clinical instructor caring
There were no significant correlation between the ages of the respondents and their perceptions of clinical instructor caring, except in subscale four, “Control vs. flexibility”, where there was a negative correlation between age and student nurses' perceptions of clinical instructor caring
Summary
Caring is the core of nursing and should be cultivated in student nurses. there are serious concerns about the caring concern in the clinical environment and in nursing education. Clinical instructors are ideally positioned to care for student nurses so that they in turn, can learn to care for their patients. The purpose of this article is to describe the findings of a study on the perceptions of student nurses enrolled at a private nursing education institution in South Africa about clinical instructor caring. Clinical instructors are in an ideal position to care for student nurses and should be chosen carefully, to demonstrate the values of care and caring Their influence is likely to be powerful in the development of the moral nature of nursing practice (King, Jackson, Gallagher, Wainwright, & Lindsay, 2009, p. 142)
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