Nursing Students Achieving Community Health Competencies through Undergraduate Clinical Experiences: A Gap Analysis

In Canada, it is widely believed that nursing practice and health care will move from acute care into the community. At the same time, increasing numbers of nursing students are engaged in non-traditional clinical experiences for their community health rotation. These clinical experiences occur at agencies not organizationally affiliated with the health care system and typically do not employ registered nurses (RNs). What has yet to be established is the degree to which nursing students are actually being prepared for community health nursing roles through their community health clinical rotations. In this paper we report the findings of a mixed method study that explored the gap between desired and observed levels of competence in community health of senior nursing students and new graduates. The gap was quantified and then the nature of the gap further explored through focus groups.