Nursing students’ errors and their causes: A qualitative exploration of clinical instructors’ perspectives

Students may commit errors while learning and developing their clinical skills. This study was aimed to explore clinical instructors’ view about nursing students’ errors. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted using a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve clinical instructors and analyzed using inductive content analysis. Two main categories emerged from the data as “Nature of nursing students’ errors” (Acting against the instruction set and Repeating the same mistake) and “Causes of nursing students’ errors” (Personal characters and Educational characters). There is a need for a precise definition of nursing students’ errors to promote patients' safety. It is necessary to concentrate attention on the causes of the student’s error and improve preventive measures from the perspective of education practitioners such as clinical instructors and especially students. The presence of clinical instructor with the standard ratio to nursing students and proper communication with the nurses could prevent the occurrence of mistakes. Improvement of the educational condition of clinical teaching and making a calm and motivational clinical learning environment is necessary.