Advances in Medical Education and Practice (Jun 2020)
Nursing and Midwifery Students’ Viewpoints of Clinical Learning Environment: A Cross-Sectional Study
Abstract
Forozan Sharifipour,1 Sousan Heydarpour,2 Nader Salari3 1Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran; 2Department of Reproductive Health, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran; 3Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, IranCorrespondence: Sousan HeydarpourDepartment of Reproductive Health, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, IranEmail [email protected]: To determine the viewpoints of nursing and midwifery students regarding the clinical learning environment and to identify the relationship between these viewpoints with some demographic characteristics of students.Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on nursing and midwifery students (n=119) in the educational hospitals affiliated to Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences from February to June 2017. The data-gathering tools were a demographics questionnaire and the standard undergraduate clinical education environment measure. This tool comprises two main scales of learning through experiencing and social participation, with four subscales of opportunities to learn in and through work and quality of supervision, preparedness for student entry, workplace interaction patterns and student inclusion, and equal treatment. The score ranged from 25 to 125 and the higher the score the higher the quality of the educational environment. The collected data were analyzed in “Statistical Package for the Social Sciences” (Version20).Results: The nursing and midwifery students’ viewpoint of the clinical learning environment was suboptimal. There was a significant difference between the female and male students’ viewpoints of the clinical learning environment (p=0.007). There was no significant difference between students’ viewpoints of the clinical learning environment with marital status, employment, domicile, grade-point average, and number of days of internship. Nursing students had more positive viewpoints of the clinical learning environment than midwifery students (p=0.001).Conclusion: The results showed that the clinical learning environment was suboptimal based on the nursing and midwifery students’ perspectives. Intervention to improve the clinical learning environment is recommended.Keywords: internship, student, nursing, midwifery, clinical learning environment, viewpoints
