Experience of nursing students in the first exposure to the patient under chemotherapy ‎

Background: Caring for people with cancer and chemotherapy is emotionally challenging. Nursing students, as people who are in the future accepting nursing roles, are no exception. Therefore, it is very important to know their experiences in the first exposure to the patient under chemotherapy in order to train efficient staff and provide quality care. Method: This study is a descriptive phenomenological study. In this study, purposive sampling was performed among ‎students who had experience in caring of patients under chemotherapy for at least ‎‏10‏‎ days ‎and wished to express their experiences. Sampling was continued until the depths and richness of the data. The data ‎collection tool was a semi-structured interview. Data analysis was carried out based on ‎Colaizzi’s method, and Lincoln and Guba criteria were used to ensure rigor and data consistency.‎ Findings: In this study, 11 students aged 21-24 years and studied in nursing 8-5 semester were interviewed. After analyzing the data, six sub themes and three main themes were extracted, including altruism, prejudices, and incompetency. Conclusion and Conclusion: The sense of incompetence and lack of preparedness that results in a student judgment and prejudices among students indicates their need to be more prepared to facilitate confrontation with these patients and provide more effective care. On the other hand, maintaining students' mental health should be considered along with using altruism as a powerful motivating force. Therefore, with regard to the above, more accurate educational planning is appropriate.