Korean nursing students’ experiences of their first clinical practice

Abstract

Background: Clinical practice in nursing education develops the students’ core competence in nursing. Nursing students’ experiences of their clinical practice provide deeper insight to develop an effective clinical teaching strategy in nursing education. The purpose of this study was to explore the meanings and structure related to nursing students’ experiences of their clinical practice. Methods: A qualitative approach based on van Manen’s phenomenological method was used. Participants were 12 female students and three male students, ages 21 to 25 in a nursing college. Data were collected from iterative work with in-depth interviews and their field notes during the first clinical practice of eight-weeks. Each interview was tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Findings: Essential themes that fit into the context of the four existential ground of body, time, space and other people emerged: body locking up, hands trembling; an obstruction-like being; feeling the patient’s pain; my proud self as a future nurse; the first encounter with a serious and awkward time; increasing one’s own time for self-reflection; long days but a quickly-passing week; any places with uncomfortableness; steadily growing radius of activities; nurses who and who are not worthy of emulation; but still-grateful patients; and my most reliable practice colleague. Conclusions: The result showed that nursing students did not adapt efficiently to clinical practice and they experienced difficult learning processes. It is necessary for nursing faculty to develop effective and realistic orientation programs, support systems, and intervention programs to strengthen nursing students’ competency. The lived experiences of clinical learning among nursing students provided useful insight for nursing faculty involved in nursing education.