Effective Reflection on Clinical Competency of Nursing Students in Shiraz University

Abstract

Introduction: With the evergrowing increase of knowledge in today's global society, teachers now feel it is necessity to train students to become reflective thinkers. This issue is particularly important for nursing students who are responsible for taking care of patients. The purpose of this study is to investigate nursing students’ views on reflection in practice. Materials & methods: Forty two nursing students voluntarily participated in this study. After explaining the aims of the study to the participants, they took part in the clinical skills test. They were divided into two equal case and control groups. The control group took part in routine clinical programs and the case group participated routine clinical programs as well as this study's interventional program. They were asked to reflect on their clinical experiences for the last 12 weeks of their clinical course and take part in the clinical skills test again. Results: The results obtained in this study are based on statistical data and t-test results. The results confirm the role of reflection on clinical competency, and the two groups were different with respect to learning clinical skills. Conclusion: Since the clinical skills test is a specific test for evaluating clinical skills, the notable change is considerablly valuable and reflection is suggested to be implemented in the nursing curriculum in Iran as one of the necessary criteria for competency.