The Viewpoint of Midwifery Students on Support and supervision in Clinical learning environment at Zanjan University of Medical Sciences

Clinical support and supervision is one of the fundamental pillars of clinical education of midwifery students، hence the absent of clinical support and supervision may affect the students’ clinical learning outcomes. In wide review of the literatures there did not found any study that investigated the clinical support and supervision from the viewpoint of Iranian midwifery students. Therefore، this descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the first semester within educational years 2011-2012. The sample of study were 74 baccalaureate midwifery students with the experiences at least two semesters in clinical learning in Zanjan University of Medical Sciences that participated by census sampling method. Furthermore، «Perception of Extent of Support and Supervision Survey» was used for data gathering which investigated the support (17 items) and supervision (12 items) in clinical learning; accordingly، the final scores for support subscale were from 17 to 85، and for the supervision subscale was from 12 to 60. Some demographic and educational characters of students were gathered by checklist. Then data analysis was also calculated by SPSS software using descriptive and inferential statistic. Findings showed that the average score of students in support subscale was 58; the highest score was for “providing assistance” area and the least score were for “understanding learner needs” area. Although، the average score of students in supervision subscale was 43; according to the viewpoint of midwifery students، the support and supervision in clinical setting seems suitable، but necessary changing is needed for achieving ideal situation.