Crying in the halls: supervising students with symptoms of emotional problems in the clinical practicum

Abstract

There is evidence that the number of university students with mental health problems has increased over the past few years. The literature also suggests that the number and effect of troubled health science students create significant problems in the clinical practicum. However, there are gaps in the literature as to how clinical teachers actually feel about and deal with these students. For this paper, we interviewed 16 clinical teachers from various health science disciplines to identify components of the dilemma faced by them when encountered with a student with challenging behaviour, and to then explore the strategies they applied. We found that the teachers’ emotions played a significant role in the identification of troubled students, and that successful strategies employed by participants entailed both professional demeanour and infrastructure components.