[The Italian instrument evaluating the nursing students clinical learning quality]

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Quality Assessment

Background:

• Italian nursing programs require tools to assess clinical learning quality from student perspectives.
• Existing evaluation tools have limitations, necessitating the development of a new instrument.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new instrument for measuring the clinical learning quality experienced by nursing students.
• To address the need for a comprehensive and reliable evaluation tool in Italian nursing education.

Main Methods:

• A validation study was conducted from 2015-2016, involving 43 Italian nursing programs.
• The instrument was developed using literature review, existing validated tools, and expert/student consensus.
• 9606 nursing students from 27 universities participated in the study.

Main Results:

• The developed instrument demonstrates good to excellent psychometric properties.
• The final tool includes 22 items structured into five key factors.
• These factors encompass tutorial strategies, learning opportunities, safety, self-directed learning, and the learning environment.

Conclusions:

• The validated Clinical Learning Quality Evaluation Index is currently in use.
• Systematic adoption can facilitate comparisons across settings and programs.
• The index can aid in accrediting new clinical settings and evaluating quality improvement strategies.