Pre-qualifying Students Research Articles

Guidelines to support newly qualified professional nurses for effective clinical practice.

Transitioning to a professional role is difficult for newly qualified professional nurses. Given the challenges that these nurses experience during the transition to practice, support is essential for them to become efficient, safe, confident, and competent in their professional roles. The purpose of this study was to explore the transition experiences of newly qualified professional nurses to develop a preceptorship model. This study employed a qualitative approach to purposively collect data. Concept analyses were conducted applying the steps suggested by Walker and Avant, and the related concepts were classified utilising the survey list of Dickoff, James and Wiedenbach's practice theory. A preceptorship model for the facilitation of guidance and support in the clinical area for newly qualified professional nurses was developed. The model consists of six components, namely, the clinical environment, the operational manager and preceptor, the newly qualified professional nurse, the preceptorship, the assessment of learning, and the outcome. The study revealed that newly qualified professional nurses face many transition challenges when entering clinical practice. They are thrown far in, experience a reality shock, and are not ready to start performing their professional role. The participants agreed that guidance and support are needed for their independent practice role.Contribution:The preceptorship model for newly qualified professional nurses would be necessary for the transition period within hospitals. This preceptorship model may be implemented by nursing education institutions as part of their curriculum to prepare pre-qualifying students for the professional role.

Preparing pre-qualifying students for work and wellbeing competencies in the context of newly emerging physiotherapy roles: a national qualitative study

Key-Words: Pre-Qualification, Work, Wellbeing

Developing interprofessional simulation in the undergraduate setting: Experience with five different professional groups

This article reports our experience of developing half-day sessions of interprofessional simulation for pre-qualifying students from medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, radiography and operating department practice. One hundred and ninety-one students participated in a session. A questionnaire consisting of Likert type, visual analog and open comment questions explored their perceptions of the sessions as a learning experience, their attitudes toward interprofessional learning and the factors important for good patient care either after, or before and after, the session, as appropriate. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, statistical tests for difference or thematic coding. Our data suggest that routine scenarios following patient journeys offer such students valuable educational experiences. In order to maximize the educational value of such sessions, particular attention should be paid to the benefits anticipated for individual professions, as well as those for all groups; to the wider educational context in which sessions lie and to the careful management of debriefing. A collaborative approach to the development of these increasingly popular but time and resource intensive educational interventions is advantageous for both staff and students.

Student engagement in interprofessional working in practice placement settings

. To investigate the nature of student engagement in interprofessional interaction while on placement. Due to continuing emphasis on improving interprofessional collaboration, UK educational establishments are required to offer pre-qualifying health and social care students interprofessional education in order that they acquire relevant competencies. However, few formal interprofessional education initiatives occur in practice settings and little is known about pre-qualifying students' non-formal learning about interprofessional issues while on placement. From 2003-2005 an English Faculty of Health and Social Care conducted a qualitative study to explore opportunities for interprofessional learning and working available to students in practice placement settings. Case studies were conducted in a coronary care ward, a medical ward for older patients, a maternity unit, a paediatric unit, an integrated community learning disabilities team and a residential facility for adults with challenging behaviour. Gaining access was complex, due to variable student timetables and UK research governance requirements. Sites were therefore selected according to geographical area and timing of student placements. Details of interprofessional interaction (formal and informal) were observed and recorded. Interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 20 practitioners and 15 students. Data were analysed thematically. Student experience varied considerably. Contributing factors included the influence of doctors and differing professional cultures; mentors' support for student engagement in interprofessional working; and individual students' confidence levels. Most sites were managed by nurses and some senior nurses were proactive in involving students interprofessionally. However, many students lacked systematic support for interprofessional engagement. Students lack parity of experience concerning interprofessional activity on placement. Where they do not have systematic support, their engagement depends mainly on their own confidence. Senior nurses are ideally placed to promote environments where students can develop interprofessional competencies through systematic interprofessional engagement.

Mentorship in contemporary practice: the experiences of nursing students and practice mentors

This paper explores the role of the mentor in contemporary nursing practice in the UK. It presents findings from a recent study which investigated the impact of a locality-based nursing education initiative on students, practice mentors and academic staff and draws on another study, conducted in the same setting and two Australian sites, to examine the perceptions of nursing students and mentors. Within nursing, mentorship is integral to students' clinical placement experiences and has attracted increasing interest among researchers. Despite a plethora of studies focussing on mentoring and its nature and application within the practice setting, limited attention has been paid to the extent to which guidelines provided by regulatory bodies for nursing inform and influence the practice of mentoring in contemporary health-care settings. The study used a two-phased design with data on mentorship being focussed on the second phase. Data were collected using an online survey questionnaire of pre-qualifying students and a postal questionnaire for practice mentors. The findings highlight the importance of mentorship for prequalifying students and emphasise the need to provide mentors with adequate preparation and support. They confirm previous research, but also highlight improvements in bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality for mentorship. Results are further strengthened when compared with those of the second study. Findings provide new evidence of a narrowing of the gap between the theory and practice of mentoring and for the continuing implementation of national standards to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the mentor. They also suggest the benefits of developing such standards in countries with similar systems of support for nursing students. Mentorship is pivotal to students' clinical experiences and is instrumental in preparing them for their role as confident and competent practitioners.

‘Real life’ clinical learning on an interprofessional training ward

This paper describes the multi-method evaluation of an interprofessional training ward placement for medical, nursing, occupational therapy and physiotherapy students. Unique in the UK, and an extension of pioneering work in Sweden (Wahlström et al. 1997, Wahlstroöm & Sandén 1998), this interprofessional clinical placement allowed senior pre-qualifying students, under the supervision of practitioners, to plan and deliver interprofessional care for a group of orthopaedic and rheumatology patients. This responsibility enabled students to develop both their profession-specific skills in a real-world setting and the quality of their interprofessional teamwork. Student teams were supported by facilitators who led reflective sessions and acted as a resource for the students’ problem-based learning.The training ward was evaluated by a multi-method approach, incorporating interviews, observations and questionnaires with students, patients and clinical staff. The evaluation findings have been grouped into a number of themes which offer an insight into the varying perspectives of training ward students, patients and staff. This paper pays particular attention to the nursing perspective of the interprofessional training ward pilot.

Book Review

C. G. L. Clamp, S. Gough, A. S. Hinshaw, S. L. Feetham, J. L. F. Shaver Resources for nursing research: an annotated bibliography (eds). Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage , 1999 . ISBN 080395784X . 722 pp., £55 . For many years now the nursing profession has sought to develop its knowledge base through both the awareness and practice of research. The two books under review here deal with this issue from the viewpoint of the would-be researcher and of the seeker after existing knowledge. Clamp & Gough’s Resources for nursing research is now in its third edition since 1991, which perhaps gives some indication of the value attached to it. It is aimed at students, teachers, researchers and practising nurses. Many of the items cited would be of value to a wide range of professional researchers in the field of health and beyond. The format of the book has been improved making it clearer to read. The content has been revised, but the basic structure of it has been retained. There are three sections; part one details sources of literature, part two discusses methodologies, and part three deals with background issues, such as history, funding, career issues and education. Also included in this section are references to international and interdisciplinary research. The bibliography now boasts 2760 entries, of which 64% are said to be new since the second edition (1994). In addition to author and subject indexes there are appendices of computer-based research methodology databases and programs, over 300 relevant specialist journals, series publications from Sage and sources of definitions. The provision of definitions means that the book can be used as a basic dictionary of research and they are easily found by the use of bold type within the subject index. A feature of previous editions, whereby references to relevant standard textbooks were provided, has been dropped. However, individual annotations continue to be well cross-referenced. There has obviously been some addition of Internet sites and databases since the last edition. Interestingly, the two noted UK nursing researchers who provide the foreword for Resources for nursing research, Lizbeth Hockey and Anne Marie Rafferty, do not warrant mention in the author index of the Handbook of clinical nursing research. This may well reflect the nature of their own research activity but it also indicates the very marked American bias of the Handbook, and the relative progress that American nurses have made in developing the research base of their practice. Ada Hinshaw and her colleagues have gathered together the work of over 50 contributors. They have divided the material into two parts. Part one makes up 10% of the text and deals with philosophical, theoretical and methodological issues. The second part synthesizes the results of research on particular topics. These were chosen according to whether there is a substantial amount of nursing-related research available that could be reliably used in practice. The areas reviewed include family health, women’s health, nursing the elderly, health promotion, work with vulnerable communities, management of illness and the outcomes of particular therapeutic environments. This is a detailed, well referenced and, on this scale, pioneering work. The audience for the Handbook is both pre-qualifying students and postgraduates, practitioners and academics, nurses and other health professionals. The Handbook might have benefited from having a more focused audience in mind. Taken together these two texts make a valuable contribution to the ability of nurses to ground their work in research and evidence-based knowledge. Both would be useful additions to the reference shelves of any library serving nurses.