Guidance Of Student Nurses By Clinical Nurse Instructors In A Training Hospital Of Oshana Region

ABSTRACT

This study was exploratory and descriptive in nature in which the researcher aimed to

explore and describe how student nurses are guided by clinical nurse instructors in the

training hospital of Oshana region.

A quantitative as well as a qualitative approach has been utilized for this study. The

quantitative part of the study was to get personal and professional information from the

clinical nurse instructors. The qualitative approach was used to explore the views and

attitudes of the clinical nurse instructors and student nurses towards clinical guidance as

the researcher was directly involved in the interviews.

Questionnaires were distributed to the clinical nurse instructors to fill in and returned to

the researcher before conducting the focus group discussion. Four (4) focus group

interviews were held with clinical nurse instructors, as well as, and three (3) focus group

interviews with student nurses. The interviews were conducted in one of the classrooms

at the Oshakati Regional Health Training Centre which was conducive for the

discussions because it was not too noisy.

The study population consisted of twenty nine (29) clinical nurse instructors from

Oshakati hospital of whom twenty-two (22) responded. The population of student nurses

consisted of twenty six (26) respondents of whom sixteen (16) responded

The findings indicated that the professional background of clinical nurse instructors was

inadequate for pursuing a teaching role since none of the clinical nurse instructors have

specialized in nursing education and most of them do not have any training on clinical

instruction and guidance.

The findings also revealed that the guidance given to student nurse is inadequate,

because it is mostly given on request. It further indicated that the clinical nurse

instructors are insecure and lack self confidence, because they were unsure whether what

they did is right or wrong.

It was highly recommended from this study that staff development programmes be

developed to help clinical nurse instructors to be better prepared for their role.