Essential clinical skill components of new graduate nurses: A qualitative study

Today it is a growing challenge for nursing schools to prepare students with quality education to provide them with essential clinical skills to practice as graduates. A number of studies report that graduate nurses feel underprepared with adequate skill levels to perform in the real world of clinical practice. In Thailand, these matters are of great concern, hence this first-time study on the topic. We report on the qualitative phase of a larger mixed methods study. A qualitative descriptive approach was used with the sample, 12 nursing educators, 24 registered nurses, 24 new graduate nurses, and four members of the Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council committee. The participants were purposely selected for 12 semi-structured focus group discussions, and 12 were later invited for in-depth interviews. Using content analysis, four skills themes were extracted: fundamental, health promotion and disease prevention, rehabilitation, and skills in specialty areas. These skill components can be used to inform the development of a framework of essential clinical skills of graduate nurses for generating nursing practice to ensure patient safety and quality of care. Furthermore, these components can inform training guidelines for nursing student practice activities in subjects and policies to support nursing students in practice.