The Status of Clinical Supervision in Midwifery Education: Perspective of Midwifery Clinical Teachers and Students in Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Implementation of clinical supervision of student training could bring about high standards in patient care. The purpose of this study was to determine the status of clinical supervision in midwifery education from the perspective of midwifery clinical teachers and students in Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 90 midwifery students in different field internship training units and 25 midwifery clinical teachers who were selected through census method. Data collection tool was the 15-item, 5-point Likert scale CCTEI standardized questionnaire. The data were analyzed using independent t-test, chi-square and ANOVA.
A total of 80 student questionnaires and 20 clinical teacher questionnaires were analyzed. The status of clinical supervision in midwifery education was evaluated as average with the mean score 52.5 out of 75. There was a significant difference between the views of clinical teachers and students about the status of clinical supervision such that the clinical teachers evaluated it at a high level with the mean score 60.3 (SD=5.07) while the students evaluated it at an average level with the mean score 46.2 (SD=9.94). The statuses of clinical supervision were significantly different in different clinical arrangements.
This difference between the views of clinical teachers and students about the status of clinical education could be due to students’ needs such that the students needed more training in diagnostic skills which is not fully provided by clinical teachers. Since clinical supervision is a teacher-student interaction, further research is recommended to account for these different views.