Nursing supervisors' perspectives on student preparedness before clinical placements- a focus group study.

Abstract

The study was conducted in a county in Southeastern-Norway, with 317.000 inhabitants, and within one hospital and one university college catchment area. Focus group interviews were conducted in the periode August to December 2018. Data were analyzed using Hsieh and Shannon's conventional content analysis. 34 nursing supervisors participated, three intellectual disability nurses and 31 registered nurses, working in four different primary healthcare wards and four different hospital wards. Participants' age ranged from 23 to 58 years, one male only. Through the analysis we derived the category 'Shared responsibility for preparation' with subcategories a) Individual initiative, and b) University college facilitation. Findings indicate that there is a gap between nursing supervisors' expectations and reality regarding students' preparedness for clinical placements. Moreover, nursing supervisors did not seem to focus on their own role in student preparedness.