Self-Efficacy and Graduate Education in a Nurse Anesthesia Program: A Pilot Study

A descriptive correlational pilot study was conducted to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and demographic and outcome variables (age, gender, academic or clinical year, years of experience as a critical care nurse, number of clinical cases, call hours, and years since attending an academic program). To identify students' perception of their ability to achieve independence in learning, the Schwarzer and Jerusalem General Self-Efficacy Scale was administered to first-year academic students and second-year clinical students. The study revealed significant negative associations between academic year and degrees of selfefficacy, indicating that students in the clinical year had lower self-efficacy than did students in the didactic year. The analysis also revealed significant negative associations between clinical caseload and degrees of self-efficacy, indicating that the higher the clinical caseload, the lower the student's self-efficacy.