Perceptions regarding the clinical accompaniment of student nurses in the Limpopo Province

Abstract

A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional survey was carried out in the Limpopo Province to identify the perceptions of student nurses, nurse educators and unit supervisors concerning student nurses’ clinical accompaniment in this province. The research objective was to determine whether or not clinical accompaniment of student nurses in the Limpopo Province was perceived to be adequate by the student nurses themselves as well as by the nurse educators and the unit supervisors. The population for this study comprised all second-, third- and fourth-year student nurses, all nurse educators from the university and the colleges, and all unit supervisors from the health institutions within the Limpopo Province of the Republic of South Africa. Simple random sampling was used to ensure that every student nurse from each nursing college had an equal chance of being chosen. No sampling procedures were applied to university student nurses, nurse educators and unit supervisors as these entire small target populations participated in the research. A self-designed questionnaire was used for data collection. The face and content validity of the items were accepted by three experts in the field. The Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyse data. The research results indicated that student nurses and nurse educators focussed on educational outcomes while unit supervisors focussed on patient care outcomes during clinical accompaniment. Both student nurses and unit supervisors expected nurse educators to accompany student nurses in the clinical settings, but the majority of the nurse educators did not perceive clinical accompaniment to be one of their tasks. Student nurses’ clinical accompaniment could be enhanced if nurse educators would be available in the clinical situations and if communication and interpersonal relationships among various categories of nurses could be improved. In-service education could also help to realise this ideal.