Abstract

Background: The clinical setting is one of the most valuable educational resources available to nursing and midwifery students. It is a vital element to the successful preparation of nurses and midwives. Objectives: This study aimed at assessing nursing and midwifery student’s satisfaction in the acquisition of clinical skills during internship in Fako Division. Materials and methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive study design. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the study sites and enroll participants respectively. The study was conducted in five health institutions which train nursing students. The participants were nursing and midwifery students in their final year of study, who gave their consent to participate in the study. Data was collected using a well-structured, self-administered questionnaire made up of both open and closed-ended questions. Data was coded, entered into an Excel 2010 spreadsheet and analyzed using SPSS Version 23. Chi squared test was used to test for association between variables at 95% confidence interval. A p-value of less than or equal to 0.05 was deemed statistically significant. Results: The sample was made up of 346 nursing and midwifery students. Alost all [(90.2%)] of the nurses and midwives had good knowledge regarding expectation on the acquisition of clinical skills. The satisfaction of interns with the acquisition of clinical skills was good (67.9%). Also, there was a significant association between programmes and number of clinical rotations (p-value of 0.038 and 0.024 respectively). More than half [(58.1%)] of the students were not satisfied with the clinical learning environment. The main factors limiting the acquisition of clinical skills by students were too many interns (75.1%), patients’ refusal to be attended to by interns (70.2%), being sent out during certain procedures (63.6%) and lack of follow up from training school (60.1%). Conclusion: The knowledge of nurses/midwives on the acquisition of clinical skills was good. The satisfaction of interns with the acquisition of clinical skills was good. More than half of the participants were not satisfied with the clinical learning environment. The main factors that limited the acquisition of clinical skills by student nurses and midwives were too many interns, patient refusal to be attended to by interns, and being sent out during certain procedures among others

Keywords

clinical skills, satisfaction, clinical-environment, student nurses/midwives.