Nursing students' perception of their clinical practice in intensive care units: A study from Egypt

Abstract

Providing nursing students with quality clinical experience in intensive care units (ICUs) is a major concern for nursing educators in Egypt. Understanding nursing students' perception of their critical care experience is important in future planning of successful clinical placements in ICUs. The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate nursing students' perception of their clinical practice in ICUs. The study involved 306 nursing students who were registered in critical care nursing course. Data were collected using a self-administered survey which addressed nursing students' perception of three domains including clinical practice environment, clinical teaching and learning and factors hindering clinical practice in intensive care setting. The results illustrated that the majority of students enjoyed their clinical experience in ICUs. However, students highlighted many factors that hindered their clinical practice such as the stressful intensive care setting, fear of making mistakes, complex patients’ conditions, theory-practice gap, overburdening with documentation and lack of coordination between clinical placements. Supportive learning environment is needed to enhance students' clinical learning, improve collaboration between students, demonstrators and critical care nursing staff, and reduce theory-practice gap.