Rethinking student night duty placements - a replication study

Abstract

Objective: This paper reports findings as a replicated qualitative study (McKenna and French 2010) that investigated experiences and value of night duty; with the variance that the students’ were undergraduate enrolled nurse students as opposed to undergraduate registered nurse student nurses’.

Design: Enrolled nurse students’ from one private Registered Training Organisation (RTO) were invited to participate in a two week night shift placement as their preparation for practice in an acute care facility. A qualitative approach involving focus groups with  students and ward nurses, prior to, and following that clinical placements was used. In addition, individual interviews were conducted with other key stakeholders from the RTO and Health Care Service.

Setting: The study was conducted in one regional public hospital in Victoria, Australia. A clinical teacher, who was also the clinical coordinator, was employed by the RTO to provide student supervision during the placement.

Subjects: Thirty eight enrolled nursing students, six permanent night staff from the hospital and four key personnel representing the education provider and hospital perspectives consented to participate.

Main Outcome Measures: All transcripts were thematically analysed together with the context of placement value and experiences.

Results: Four themes emerged from pre-placement interviews: coping with travelling, nature of night shift, preparing to be a graduate, and change and adjustment. Post placement interviews revealed four themes; time to learn and time to teach, adjusting, continuity and preparing to be a graduate and night duty as a recommended clinical placement for the enrolled nurse student.

Conclusions: This replication study has added evidentiary support that night duty is a highly appropriate model of professional clinical practice for the enrolled nurse. Within a collaborative model it has enabled the student enrolled nurse to consolidate theory to practice, exposure to reality of nursing as a twenty four hour continuity of care and met professional and education competency standards. It also demonstrated that with visionary partnerships new models of clinical experience for the enrolled nurse can be developed that meet today’s challenges to provide
flexible models of clinical experience.