Nursing students' experience of clinical facilitation with regards to their resilience
Abstract
Resilience is an attribute that is of great importance when it comes to retain nurses in the profession and to ensure quality patient care. An individual’s resilience in the workplace promotes their job satisfaction, good support systems and communication within the working environment, while it also acts as a barometer for the individual’s psychological well-being in the workplace. Clinical facilitators can play a major role in supporting nursing students and fostering their resilience. As nursing is a hands-on profession, clinical facilitation with thorough skills development is needed to help nursing students and to show the way forward, especially in the clinical environment. Based on these findings, the researcher identified the need to explore and describe nursing students’ experience of clinical facilitation in relation to their resilience. This information is important for formulating recommendations to guide the development of nursing students’ resilience through clinical facilitation. The study followed a qualitative, interpretive, phenomenological design to explore and describe nursing students’ experience of clinical facilitation, specifically as it relates with regards to resilience. Purposive sampling was utilized within the set criteria, while the sample size was determined by data saturation, which was reached before the lapse of an eight-week data collection period. A total of 197 journals were collected from participants over an eight week period and three reflective focus group interviews were conducted. Data analysis was conducted according to Tesch’s method while making use of the ATLAS.ti program. Analysis of collected data was accomplished with the assistance of a co-coder. The findings revealed themes such as personal and career vision and themes relating to participants’ experiences of clinical facilitation as it relates to specific elements of resilience, namely determination, interaction, relationships, problem solving, organization and self-confidence. The findings of this study indicate that nursing students do have some characteristics of resilience, such as having a personal and career vision. The development of resilience through clinical facilitation can be further enhanced by the presence of role models, well-developed relationships between clinical facilitators and nursing students, which then provide the needed support, motivation and encouragement. Furthermore, interaction skills development and the enhancement of nursing students’ self-confidence during clinical facilitation may lead to resilience development. Conclusions could be drawn related to nursing students’ experiences of clinical facilitation with regard to the specific elements of resilience. The overall conclusion is that nursing students from either a nursing college or university placed in a clinical setting acknowledged the important role the clinical facilitator plays and appreciated the presence and input of the clinical facilitator, but they were able to overcome adversity in the clinical setting in cases where the clinical facilitator was less available by being self-reliant, passionate, goal-orientated and determined. Therefore, it seems that resilience can be strengthened even further by clinical facilitators by maintaining a balance between providing support and motivation and facilitating self-reliance and independent learning. Based on the findings, literature integration and conclusions drawn from the research, the study offers recommendations for nursing education, nursing research and nursing practice, to guide the development of nursing students’ resilience through clinical facilitation.
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- Health Sciences [2060]