The factors affecting the clinical learning of the nursing students: A qualitative research

Training in clinical centers provides the students with opportunities to experience nursing in the real world and put theoretical knowledge into practice. The clinical learning environment is an interactive network of contributing forces in learning outcome of the students. Although the clinical learning process is a basic concept in preparing the nursing students for clinical environment practice, there is only a limited knowledge of factors affecting it in Iranian clinical environment. This research aims at gaining in-depth understanding of the factors affecting the clinical learning of nursing students regarding their situation and the organization structure of Iranian clinical environment. The participants in this qualitative study were 19 nursing students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (ZUMS). The data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. The interviews were scripted verbatim and analyzed concurrently. Three main themes were recognized through analyzing the data. The main themes affecting the clinical learning of nursing students included clinical learning environment, educational behavior of clinical instructors, and student's individual factors. The research results provide on in depth understanding of nursing student's clinical experiences in Iran. Deeper understanding of the factors affecting the clinical learning process of the students and its outcome, drawing the educational manager's attention, and clinical instructors and students to the facilitating factors, and reducing or controlling the inhibiting factors will result in improved learning in students, and put the educational managers and clinical teachers in a better situation for clinical training.