The effect of direct observation of procedural skills/mini‑clinical evaluation exercise on the satisfaction and clinical skills of nursing students in dialysis

Since the purpose of medicine science is health promotion, education of this group is very important. The use of new evaluation methods is one of the first educational needs. Given that many conventional clinical evaluation methods are not able to fully evaluation students in the clinical settings and only evaluate limited information, This study is designed to evaluate the impact of direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS) and mini‑clinical evaluation exercise (mini‑CEX) on nursing students and their clinical satisfaction skills.

This quasi‑experimental study was conducted in 2018 to evaluate the dialysis unit of the 6th semester nursing students of Babol University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Samples were selected by the census method and then random allocation. Data collection was performed using two questionnaires and two checklists to evaluate the clinical skills and satisfaction of the two groups of testing and control. Moreover, the data were analysed with using the SPSS software (version 18, IBM SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) through the descriptive and analytical statistics (Chi‑square test and t‑test).

The results showed that the intervention group compared with the control evaluation score of 13/73 ± 2/44, 11/74 ± 2/43, P < 0.002, respectively. Furthermore, the mean score of satisfaction of the intervention group with the DOPS method compared to the traditional method of the control group was 72/50 ± 7/31, 63/48 ± 9/31, P < 0.001, respectively. As well as, the mean score of satisfaction with the mini‑CEX method of the intervention group compared to the traditional method of the control group was 73/28 ± 7/78, 63/48 ± 9/31, P < 0.002, respectively.

The results of this study showed that students who were evaluated by DOPS and mini‑CEX methods had a higher score of clinical performance evaluation and higher level of satisfaction. Nursing professors can improve the learning process and the satisfaction of nursing students by using direct feedback on such evaluation methods.