Abstract
BackgroundAcquisition of psychomotor clinical skills has been shown to improve the quality of care provided to patients when care providers are competent. The aim of this study was to explore students, nurses and tutors experience on factors affecting acquisition of psychomotor clinical skills.MethodsThe study employed an exploratory qualitative research design. The population was students, clinical nurses and tutors from a nursing College and mission hospital in the southern region of Malawi. In depth interviews using a semi structured guide was used to collect data. Thematic analysis method was employed to analyze the collected data. Ethical principles of respect of human dignity, beneficence and justice were observed.ResultsThe findings have shown that acquisition of psychomotor skills is affected by: student motivation, lack of resources, learning environment, knowledge gap between the qualified nurses and tutors, and role modeling.ConclusionIn principle when student nurses have acquired necessary skills the quality of care provided to patients improve. Basing on the findings of this study it is recommended that Student should be well prepared before clinical placement Nurses and tutors should also update their knowledge and clinical teaching skills for them to adequately guide students. The clinical arena should have adequate resources.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12912-016-0153-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Acquisition of psychomotor clinical skills has been shown to improve the quality of care provided to patients when care providers are competent
This training can well be done at the pre service level as it is stipulated in the curriculum for the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) Nursing Colleges
The major themes that emerged from the transcribed data were: The clinical environment with subthemes of Student motivation, lack of material resources and human resources
Summary
Acquisition of psychomotor clinical skills has been shown to improve the quality of care provided to patients when care providers are competent. Since all health care systems are labour intensive, they require properly trained, well qualified and experienced nurse practitioners to produce optimal results [1]. Since those who train student nurses are the ultimate custodians of the standards and quality of the nursing profession, they function as the mentors of those whom they teach. When student nurse/midwives are well trained in clinical skills, the quality of care for patients in the hospitals and clients in the communities is improved. This training can well be done at the pre service level as it is stipulated in the curriculum for the CHAM Nursing Colleges.
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