Nursing Students' Difficulties in Determining the Care Needs of Patients on Clinical Practice: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

• Published in: International journal of caring sciences Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 1291 - 1299
• Main Authors: Eren, Handan, Turkmen, Ayse Sonay
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nicosia Professor Despina Sapountzi - Krepia Publisher of the International Journal of Caring Sciences 01.05.2021
• Subjects: Clinical medicine; Confidentiality; Content analysis; Data collection; Focus groups; Gender; Interviews; Nurses; Nursing care; Nursing education; Patient assessment; Researchers; Sexuality; Students; Urogenital system
• ISSN: 1791-5201; 1792-037X

Background: Initiatives to determining the care needs of patients are gained to nursing students throughout education. However, little is known about the situation of the students applying these initiatives and the difficulties they have in clinical practicum. Objective: Our research was designed to explore nursing students' difficulties in determining the care needs of patients on clinical practice. Methodology: This was a descriptive qualitative study using the content analysis approach. The study was conducted in 2019 with 46 nursing students enrolled at a nursing school. The participants were selected through simple random sampling method and attended semi structured interviews and 4 focus groups. The data were interpreted using the method of content analysis. Results: Three main themes were created: the problems related to interviewing with patients, the problems related to the physical examination, and the proposed solutions for the problems experienced by the students during determining the care needs of patients. It is found that most of the students had problems in communicating and performing physical examinations on patients of the opposite sex. Conclusion: It was observed that the students had difficulties in both taking patient history during the patient interviews and performing the physical examination. Educators and nurses should perform more patient interviews, apply more physical examination methods together with the students during recording patient history and, public advertisements should be made regarding gender perception in nursing.