Clinical supervision as an integral part in training for bridging course learners at selected hospitals in Vhembe district, Limpopo province, South Africa

16^th Clinical Nursing & Nurse Education Conference

November 21-22, 2016 Melbourne, Australia

Julia L Mafumo

University of Venda, South Africa

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Background: The researcher, who is often involved in teaching, mentoring and assessing the bridging course learners, has also noticed that learner nurses are not confident and skilled, and often display inability to integrate theory and practice. Learners sometimes have no courage when doing the skills. At times learners would hesitate to perform the particular clinical skill or come up with excuses not to do the procedure. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore and describe the significance of clinical supervision among bridging course learners at the selected hospitals in Vhembe district, Limpopo province. Method: A qualitative, exploratory, contextual and descriptive design was used and this approach was regarded as the most appropriate for this study. The population of this study consisted of the learner nurses in the bridging course programme (R683) leading to registration as a general nurse. Purposive, non-probability sampling method was used to select the participants. Data was collected by means of focus group discussion interviews during which participants were able to describe their experiences of the clinical placement in the real life setting and the support received from the professional nurses, data were collected until data saturation was reached. Result: The majority of the learners were aware of the need to be supervised when they are allocated in the clinical environment. They valued the importance of proper clinical supervision. They indicated that much need to be done to ensure that they are properly supervised. Data analysis: The researcher used the process of bracketing and remained neutral, setting aside previous knowledge and beliefs about the phenomenon under investigation. The researcher listened to the audiotapes used for data collection several times until the researcher completely satisfied with the interpretation of the verbatim data.

Biography :

Julia L Mafumo has her passion in training and supervision of learner nurses. She has been involved in Nursing Education for over 20 years where she is responsible for teaching to learner nurses in different nursing programmes. She is currently working at University of Venda where she is responsible for “Clinical teaching supervision and evaluation of learner nurses in different clinical placements”. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD and her topic of research is Nursing Education.

Email: julia.mafumo@univen.ac.za