Abstract
BackgroundRelationships with patients are seen as the core component of establishing the quality of patient-centred care and promoting patients’ autonomy and relevant use of services. A clinical learning environment that emphasizes relationship-based healthcare is essential for encouraging future healthcare professionals to work in partnership with patients. There is also broad agreement that the insight of patients should be used actively in healthcare students’ clinical learning. The aim of this study was to describe healthcare students’ perceptions of their relationship with patients and the quality of the clinical learning environment and to identify factors associated with both of these.MethodsA cross-sectional survey using an electronic questionnaire was applied to collect data from 1644 Finnish healthcare students, mostly nursing students, between January 2018 and May 2018. The data were analysed statistically using descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation coefficients, and multifactor analysis of variance.ResultsStudents perceived the level of the student-patient relationship and the role of the teacher as good while pedagogical atmosphere, premises of care, premises of learning, and supervisory relationship were perceived to be at very good level. The correlations between the student-patient relationship and all clinical learning environment dimensions were perceived as moderate. Furthermore, a number of student-related factors associated with the student-patient relationship and the quality of the clinical learning environment were detected.ConclusionsIn this study, the rarely explored perspective of the student-patient relationship within the context of the clinical learning environment was included. The student-patient relationship and the quality of the clinical learning environment were perceived as good by the students, with a number of determining factors affecting these perceptions. Giving the student-patient relationship a role in clinical education may be conducive to students’ learning with the patient in focus, and may thus promote the competence needed in the rapidly evolving healthcare environment and the changing scope of clinical practice.
Highlights
Relationships with patients are seen as the core component of establishing the quality of patientcentred care and promoting patients’ autonomy and relevant use of services
Student characteristics Of the 1644 students, most were at least 25 years old, studying in a degree programme leading to registered nurse qualification, and in their second and third year of studies
Only about two thirds perceived that their theoretical studies supported learning in clinical practice very well or fairly well
Summary
Relationships with patients are seen as the core component of establishing the quality of patientcentred care and promoting patients’ autonomy and relevant use of services. A clinical learning environment that emphasizes relationship-based healthcare is essential for encouraging future healthcare professionals to work in partnership with patients. There is broad agreement that the insight of patients should be used actively in healthcare students’ clinical learning. The aim of this study was to describe healthcare students’ perceptions of their relationship with patients and the quality of the clinical learning environment and to identify factors associated with both of these. The healthcare student-patient relationship constitutes the core of competence-based health care education [4, 5]. All patients with experience and capacity can participate in learning relationships with students and thereby improve the overall quality of the education.
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