Final-year student nurses' experiences of caring for patients

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Patient Care Quality
• Healthcare Workforce Challenges

Background:

• South African hospitals face critical nurse shortages, impacting the nurse-patient ratio and potentially compromising patient care.
• Nurses are compelled to prioritize tasks over developing therapeutic relationships, a core aspect of patient-centered care.
• Final-year student nurses, as novices, find the demanding nature of patient caring particularly challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore and describe the experiences of final-year student nurses regarding patient caring.
• To identify factors influencing student nurses' ability to provide care.
• To develop recommendations for facilitating effective patient care by student nurses.

Main Methods:

• A qualitative, descriptive, and contextual research design was employed.
• Data were gathered through eight in-depth individual interviews.
• Giorgi's five-step method, with an independent coder, was used for data analysis, ensuring trustworthiness and ethical adherence.

Main Results:

• Four major themes emerged: the integral role of therapeutic relationships, the positive impact of teamwork and team spirit on facilitating care, the significance of continuous caring for quality and safety, and identified barriers to providing care.
• Subthemes revealed specific aspects of these broader themes, offering nuanced insights into student nurses' experiences.
• Positive experiences included strong nurse-patient relationships and effective team dynamics, while barriers negatively impacted caring.

Conclusions:

• Most final-year student nurses reported positive caring experiences, emphasizing therapeutic relationships and teamwork.
• Effective teamwork and team spirit were crucial for delivering quality, safe nursing care efficiently.
• Barriers encountered by student nurses represented negative experiences that hindered their ability to provide comprehensive patient care.