Measurement Of Effectiveness Of Clinical Learning Environment For Nursing Faculty Students At Mansoura University , Egypt

Background: Clinical experience is the most important component of nursing education which must be acquired in appropriate environment. The quality of clinical learning environment (CLE) is a valid indicator to show the quality of nursing curriculum. Therefore, assessment of CLE is a duty of nursing education administrators who are facing problems in this assessment. Complex nature of CLE and lack of appropriate tools to measure the quality of this environment are two most common of these problems. Aim: The aim of the present study is to measure the degree of effectiveness of clinical learning environment for nursing faculty students at Main Mansoura university Hospital. Research design: Cross-sectional analytical design was used in the present study. Methods: The study was conducted in main Mansoura University Hospital. The study subjects include students (n=247), clinical instructors (n=58) and group of jury which includes academic nursing faculty staff (n=24) and nurse managers from different Mansoura University Hospital settings (n = 22). The data was collected by using CLE standards opinionnaire sheet, CLE assessment questionnaire and CLE observational checklist. Results: The face validity of all accreditation standards ranged between 83.74% and 94.79% with content validity index 89.67%. There was no statistically significant difference between academic staff and nurse managers agreement of clinical learning environment standards p = 0.627.The overall academic staff agreement on clinical learning environment standards was 84.834% of maximum score and 87.304% of maximum score for nurse managers. There was a statistically significant difference (p=0.011) between the assessment of students and clinical instructors of fulfilling of communication and feedback standards (93.61±6.287 and 80.341±3.866 of maximum score respectively). Observation of clinical learning environment standards, most of the standards are either partially met or not met. The percentage of fully met standards ranged between 13.33% to 25.00 %. There was a statistically significant difference between assessing of clinical learning environment standards as perceived by students and clinical instructors with these observed by the researchers p<0.001. Conclusion: Continuous measuring the effectiveness of CLE will enhance the quality of training and improve students’ knowledge and skills.