The role of instructors´ Communication Skills on Clinical Education of Nursing Students: qualitative study

Clinical education is the foundation of nursing education. Students in clinical setting obtain their professional competency and identity and Clinical instructors play a key role in the clinical education of students. Therefore, characteristics and skills of instructors have important role in how students gain clinical experiences. This study aimed to investigate the role of instructors' communication skills on clinical education of nursing students.

This qualitative study using content analysis has been done in 2017-2018. The study population was nursing students of Tabriz School of Nursing and Midwifery. Purposeful sampling consisted of 20 forth and higher semester nursing students. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. For analyzing data, Conventional content analysis method was used through Maxqda.

Four categories are emerged from data analysis include instructor´s Communication facilitating, Facilitate assignment of work to student by a nurse, attracting patient and companion collaboration, and increasing student self-esteem. Clinical instructor´s communication skills create a constructive learning environment in the clinical setting and enable the student to gain positive clinical experiences from this environment.

The results showed that instructor´s communication skills sometimes play a more important role than the practical skills and theoretical knowledge of instructor in students' clinical learning. Clinical instructors play a key role in attracting the collaboration of those involved in student clinical education. If clinical instructors have high communication skills, students' clinical experiences will be more useful and students will be able to experience easier and more effective learning in clinical settings.