Evaluation of clinical skills of nursing students in critical care units: A cross-sectional study

Nurses working in critical care units are responsible for making decisions in critical situations. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the level of clinical skills of nursing students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in critical care units in 2020-2021.

This cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study investigated 113 nursing students in the 6th, 7th and 8th semesters of Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2020-2021. The data collection tool was a questionnaire consisting of 2 parts. The first part included students' demographic information and the second part included a 3-part checklist related to clinical skills in ICU, CCU and hemodialysis units. The validity of the instrument was checked and confirmed using the content validity method. The reliability of the tool was also checked and confirmed by the test-retest method. SPSS version 22 software and descriptive and analytical statistics tests were used to analyze the data.

The average of the total clinical skills in the critical care units was 60.15 ± 11.05, which indicates that the general skills of the students in the critical care units are at the desired level. The highest average score was related to the ICU unit (21.57 ± 5.60) and the lowest average (18.08 ± 4.00) were related to the hemodialysis unit. Also, the skill of working with the ventilator, post-shock care, and setting up the hemodialysis machine were the most undesirable skills of the students in the ICU, CCU, and hemodialysis units, respectively.

The results of this study showed that the relevant authorities should make the necessary plans to improve the clinical skills of nursing students, especially in the critical care units, which has a special sensitivity. Also, in order to improve the skills that are less accessible to students in clinical centers, methods such as creating a practical space and the possibility of working on mollage and virtual training such as web-based methods and simulation can be used.