Factors influencing clinical teaching at Bwaila and Kamuzu Central Hospitals by registered nurse midwives
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Date
2015-05-01
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Abstract
Clinical teaching is teaching which takes place in a clinical area for an individual or a group of students and usually involves patients and clinical procedures. Registered nurse midwives in this study provided clinical teaching to nursing students. As clinical teachers, registered nurse midwives play a crucial role in the development of the nursing students professionally. However, evidence from literature indicates that although clinical teaching enhances clinical learning, registered nurse midwives are confronted with different challenges as they engage in the experience. For example, lack of training in clinical teaching, shortage of nursing personnel and increased numbers of students to teach.
The objectives of the study were to describe the role of registered nurse midwives in clinical teaching, identify factors that promote clinical teaching, describe benefits of clinical teaching to registered nurse midwives, and describe challenges faced by registered nurse midwives during clinical teaching. This descriptive study used quantitative methods and data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Descriptive statistics were computed and results were reported as frequencies and percentages. The study showed the following results: 100% of the respondents were aware of their role in clinical teaching and appreciated that clinical teaching offered them the opportunity to reflect on and improve their practice. Ninety-nine percent of the respondents also indicated that they were proud to see students developing professionally. However, the following are some of the challenges that were met by registered nurse midwives in the course of teaching students: 98% of the respondents were not trained in clinical teaching, 97% indicated increased workload due to shortage of the nursing staff, 85% said they had inadequate clinical resources and teaching space,
91% had large numbers of students to be taught and supervised by a single clinical supervisor, and these registered nurse midwives did not receive rewards for the service (91%). The results call for the government through Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education to continue training of more nurse midwives into the healthcare system as it is currently doing to increase nursing staff in the country. In addition, the government in collaboration with nursing colleges should train all registered nurse midwives to be fully prepared clinical teachers to equip them with necessary skills for teaching roles. Nursing colleges should also increase their effort in sourcing resources to be used by students in the clinical area in combating inadequacy of the resources during clinical placements. Regarding increased workloads due to increased intakes of the students in the colleges, registered nurse midwives as clinical facilitators should just be encouraged and motivated through use of incentives in their role as there are no immediate solutions to the problem.