Effect of Clinical Skills Evaluation Applied by Direct Observation Clinical Skills (DOPS) on the Clinical Performance of Junior Nursing Students

Direct observation of medical learner working on real patients is of paramount importance to assess practical competency. Direct observation clinical skills (DOPS) needs to be performed by direct observation of the learner and simultaneous evaluation by a questionnaire. This study aimed to assess the effect of clinical skills evaluation applied by DOPS on the clinical performance nursing students. This quasi experimental study was conducted on 35 nursing students allocated randomly to case and control groups, 2013. The data was collected by a research-made questionnaire and analyzed by Wilcoxon, Mann Whitney, Spearman Coefficient (r = 0.05) and Kappa Coefficient (K= 0.6), using SPSS software. The participants of case group were evaluated three times by DOPS and the ones in control were assessed once by routine method. The DOPS average point of case group stage 2 and 3 was significantly higher than that of controls (0.0001). But in control group, no change in mean point and no promotion in clinical performance were observed. The accurate implementation of DOPS can be a useful approach to connect knowledge to development of professional and skillful behavior. Thus, recommend that faculty members of nursing schools to focus on this way of evaluation and other modern approaches to develop continuing education.