Comparison of the status of clinical education in the views of nursing educators and students

Nursing is an applied profession and clinical training of nurses, forms the basis of its entire educational program. Clinical education has been recognized as the heart of professional nursing education. This study was carried out n order to determine the clinical education status from trainers and nursing students’ point of view. This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in one of Tehran city universities of medical sciences in 2008. This study was performed using census sampling method on a sample group including 59 nursing students and 21 nursing trainers. Data was collected by a 6-part questionnaire containing demographic data and 5 fields related to clinical education status (aims and plan of education, trainers’ attitudes towards students in clinical environment, educational environment, supervision and evaluation). Data was analyzed by independent t-test, ANOVA and Mann-Whitney test. 52.9 % of study units evaluated the status of clinical education as good, 45.8% evaluated it at moderate level and 1.4% evaluated it as weak. 55.1% of students evaluated it as moderate, 42.85% as good and 2.04% as weak, while 76.19% of trainers evaluated it as good and 23.8% evaluated it as moderate. Mann-Whitney test a statistically significant difference between the two groups’ viewpoint (p=0.01).There was a significant different between students’ and trainers’ viewpoint on clinical education status in fields of aims and plan of education, trainer and also supervision and evaluation (p<0.05). There is difference between students’ and trainers’ viewpoint on nursing clinical education status.