Discontinuation, leaving reasons and course evaluation comments of students on the common foundation programme

There is considerable financial incentive, at all levels, to reduce student nurse wastage and maintain recruitment to a workforce of professional nurses. This strategy is being pursued in a period following major educational change, when the attrition levels and leaving reasons of students need to be reassessed. Previous reports have identified a high voluntary loss of students on the common foundation programme (CFP) of the pre-registration nursing course. In order to achieve a better understanding of the basic problems faced by student nurses who consider leaving the CFP, questionnaires were distributed to three groups of students: current CFP students; students who had completed the CFP; and students who had discontinued training. The questionnaire responses show that course-based problems, identified as prime leaving reasons by the current and completed student groups, differ from the actual leaving reasons of discontinued students obtained by exit questionnaire. The attitudes of participating and discontinued students to theory, clinical and pastoral components of the CFP are not dissimilar. Some trends in attrition rate relate significantly to student category. Our results have implications for the management of student nurse attrition.