Final year student nurses’ experiences of wound care: an evaluation

This article reports on research to explore if pre-registration nursing students felt prepared to manage patients’ skin integrity effectively on registration. Final year nursing students completing adult, child and mental health fields were invited to complete questionnaires to investigate the amount of teaching sessions delivered in university in relation to managing skin integrity during their 3-year training programme, discover if pre-registration nursing students received supplementary management of skin integrity teaching in the clinical areas, explore which member of staff in the clinical areas supported the students’ learning in the area of skin integrity. Data was collected on 217 final year students (196 females and 21 males) at two higher education institutions in the north of England. The majority of respondents (n=146; 68%) reported receiving less than 10 hours formal teaching at university on the subject of skin integrity over their 3-year courses. Of those registered on degree courses, 134 students (71%) reported receiving less than 10 hours formal teaching over their 3-year courses, compared with only 12 students (46%) registered on diploma courses. Some 198 (99%) of respondents reported that their clinical teaching was undertaken by registered nurses all or some of the time. Other health professionals were reported to provide substantially less clinical teaching; with the next largest contribution reported to be provided by specialist nurses, who provided all clinical teaching to 36 respondents (19%) and some clinical teaching to 115 respondents (59%). Some 149 respondents (70%) reported that the teaching they received had developed their knowledge and skills to maintain skin integrity for all patients. Respondents claimed that teaching received had developed their knowledge and skills, reporting an average of 16.9 hours spent in directed study; whereas those who did not claim that teaching they had received had developed their knowledge and skills reported an average of 7.6 hours spent in directed study. The results of this study suggest that diplomate nurses are likely to feel more confident and competent than their graduate counterparts, despite spending the same amount of time with mentors and their peers.