Harnessing Experiences of Clinicians and Faculty to Develop Supervisory Guide for Individualized Patient Care Study

Abstract

Nursing education aims to prepare students to engage effectively as members of the health team in a professional capacity, seeking the wellbeing of the client and family. Nursing curricula are therefore developed to ensure that students attain theoretical knowledge, clinical competencies and clinical judgment as well as the compassion and humanness (UCC, 2019). To this end, final year nursing students are required to undertake an Individualized Patient and Family Care Study that involves selecting a patient and applying the nursing process approach in providing total care from the time of admission till care is terminated following discharge (Affedzie, 2011). This study is deemed as a pre-requisite for the licensing examination and registration as a professional nurses in Ghana; affording students the opportunity to effectively translate theory into practice. To ensure that students immerse themselves in the process, two supervisors; nurse clinician and faculty are assigned to supervise and mentor the student throughout the study and provides a means for student accountability (Brunero and Stein-Parbury , 2007). This is essential as studies have reported the dangers of unsupervised clinical practice of students (Kaphagawani & Useh, 2018) This research therefore seeks to unearth the experiences of clinical and nursing faculty on their supervisory journey of students undertaking the patient and family care study and to the explore strategies that ensure that students achieve the goal of the programme. This will serve as a basis for developing supervisory guides for future supervisors in a School of Nursing in Ghana. Methods: The evidence-based-co-design method of inquiry will be adopted for the study. This design is deemed suitable for the study as it will afford the researchers the opportunity to bring both the nurse clinicians and faculty together in equal partnership to co-design the Individualised Patient and Family Care Study Supervisory Guide for an improved outcome. Purposive sampling will be employed to select both nurse clinicians and faculty. The sampling approach will afford the researchers the opportunity to select information-rich participants into the study and those who meet the inclusion criteria for selection. However, further recruitment will be done if the need arises. A list of all nurse clinicians and faculty who have supervised students will be generated from the school records and the eligible participants will be invited into the study. Data collection will follow an adapted version of the Evidence-based-co-design steps outlined in the toolkit by King’s Fund in UK. A multi-staged analysis approach will be employed. Narrative analysis will be conducted for all interviews and discussions. Subsequently, collaborative abstraction will be done by the participants to isolate and outline all the strategies adopted for supervision indicated in the narratives. Collaborative engagements of participants will be used to map out the guidelines for supervision of the patient and family care study. Ethical Approval will be solicited from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Cape Coast. Results: Study yet to be conducted. Conclusion: The study will unearth strategies that will enhance the roles of clinicians and faculty while supervising students and further underscore development of guideline.