Improving student nurses' practical/clinical skills through preceptorship in the Bawku Presbyterian Nurses training college

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to use preceptorship to improve the practical performance of student nurses in Presbyterian Nurses Training College, Bawku, which would bring about improvement in the quality of nursing care. Sixty student nurses were selected through purposive and random sampling from the final year class of the College for the study. The data collection instruments used were the questionnaire and rating scale used by the Nurses and Midwives Council of Ghana for student nurses assessment. The study was an action research so the instruments were used in both the pre-intervention and post-intervention phases. The students were made to carry out demonstrations in the wards where they were rated and the pre-intervention questionnaire administered. After this they were supervised by six preceptors and later rated and the post-intervention questionnaire also administered and analysed to find out the extent to which the intervention had helped to improve the performance of student nurses in the college. The duration of the study was two academic terms. It was realised from the results that preceptorship had positive impact on the performance of student nurses as most of the post-intervention results were better than the pre-intervention results. From the results of the study, the researcher recommends that there should be a preceptor model instituted in the Bawku Presbyterian Nurses Training College to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the clinical area which could lead to improvement in standard of nursing care to meet contemporary times of modern Ghana.