Threats and stresses of initial medical surgical clinical experience as perceived by novice student nurses

ABSTRACT

Based upon the theory of cognitive appraisal of stress, an instrument was designed to identify the threats of the clinical experience as described by 120 novice students at their initial exposure to the medical surgical practice in baccalaureate nursing program. Using content analysis six areas of threats were determined including personal inadequacy, fear of making errors, uncertainly, the clinical instructor, fear of the clinical experience and fear of failure. The test of significance revealed that uncertainly was the highest threat- provoker, and the threat of inadequacy was the lowest. The threats elaborated in this study should provide nurse educators with some insights into underst and ing the stressors inherent in the clinical experience and the effective means of dealing with them so as not to interfere with student's learning