Exploring nursing students' first clinical experiences with patients with hard-to-heal wounds in Türkiye: a focus...

To explore the experiences of undergraduate nursing students in Türkiye participating in their first clinical practice in the wound care unit.

This focus group study used a descriptive phenomenological design. Nursing students were interviewed using a purposive sampling method in three focus groups which took place between 1-31 August 2022. The interviews were conducted online using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analysed using Colaizzi's seven-step methodology and reported via the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist.

The mean age of the 18 participants was 21.2±0.6 years. The most common type of hard-to-heal (chronic) wound type observed by the students was pressure injury, while the most common wound care practice they observed was wound photography. From the analysis of the responses to the interviews, three main themes (consisting of 10 subthemes) emerged: issues that are challenging to cope with (witnessing pain, fear, sadness, incompetency, strain); gains (awareness, self-confidence, role-modelling, transferring theoretical knowledge to clinical practice); and factors that reduce the effectiveness of clinical practice (insufficient time).

In specialised clinics, such as wound care units, providing supportive learning environments for students who find the problems encountered in clinical practice challenging to deal with is essential. Therefore, the theoretical and clinical scopes of educational curricula should be standardised, and clinical educators should support students as they develop a professional perspective on the challenges they encounter.