Indonesian student nurses’ perceptions of stress in clinical learning: A phenomenological study

Background: Clinical education is an essential part of the nursing education program. It aims to achieve a set of competencies, integrate the theory with practice and enhance critical thinking and decision making abilities in the clinical setting. However, clinical education has been recognised to be perceived as a stressful event, especially for novice nursing students or nursing students who have no previous clinical experiences. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the meaning of lived experiences of stress for Indonesian novice nursing students in clinical education. Methods: It was an interpretive qualitative study informed by phenomenology and, in particular, van Manen’s method. Six Indonesian novice nursing students undertaking clinical education at a nursing school on the Indonesian island of Sumatera participated via an international telephone interview. Thematic analysis, proposed by van Manen, was used to analyse the data and capture the themes. Results and conclusion: Three main themes emerging from the study were “feelings of pressure”, “challenging relationships”, and “using coping strategies”. There were ten sub-themes, grouped as Clinical, Relationships and Responses and Coping. Nurses as educators play significant roles in assisting nursing students in clinical education to reduce feelings of stress, so that nursing students can undergo clinical education successfully.