Effect of humanistic care-integrated Mini-CEX teachingon nursing students' clinical competence: a quasi-experimental...

Clinical competence is pivotal for nursing students to succeed in their clinical training and future practice. Traditional education often emphasizes technical skills at the expense of holistic care, humanistic competencies, and core clinical abilities. This study therefore reformed the "Basic Nursing Intensive Training" course by integrating humanistic care with the Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX). This reform aims to investigate its effectiveness in enhancing the clinical competence of nursing students.

This study utilized a quasi-experimental design. From February to June 2025, The study enrolled 193 third-year undergraduate nursing students from a Chinese university. Using a cluster random sampling approach, participants were assigned to either the intervention group (n = 97) or the control group (n = 96). The control group received conventional instruction, while the intervention group received conventional instruction enhanced by a teaching strategy that integrated humanistic care with the Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise. Following the instructional period, both groups underwent comprehensive course assessments and evaluations of clinical core competencies. Additionally, Mini-CEX scores, humanistic care competence, and Self-Directed Learning (SDL) ability were measured in both cohorts.

Following the instructional intervention, nursing students in the intervention group demonstrated significantly higher scores compared to the control group in core competency (152.44 ± 12.34 vs. 142.56 ± 13.89, t = 5.244, P < 0.001), comprehensive course performance (87.03 ± 3.21 vs. 84.51 ± 4.00, t = 2.977, P = 0.040), humanistic care ability (181.89 ± 16.03 vs. 168.19 ± 13.49, t = 4.356, P = 0.013), SDL ability (87.02 ± 10.27 vs. 78.45 ± 9.99, t = 5.875, P < 0.001), and Mini-CEX score (53.67 ± 5.81 vs. 50.40 ± 5.12, t = 4.140, P < 0.001) (all P < 0.05). No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups in operational skills assessment scores (P = 0.057) or the personal traits dimension (P = 0.055).

Although the teaching method integrating humanistic care with Mini-CEX did not yield significant improvements in procedural technical skills (hard skills), it enhanced nursing students' soft skills essential for clinical practice, including clinical competence, humanistic care literacy, and SDL ability. This approach may help prepare students for the humanistic and cognitive demands of clinical nursing work.