Incivility experiences in clinical practicum education among nursing students

Background: Nursing students' incivility experiences not only cause stress and burnout but also have other negative effects on general clinical training, hindering their learning or even affecting their career decisions. Objectives: This study aimed to comprehensively and thoroughly examine the specific phenomena and implications of incivility experienced by nursing students during clinical practicum. Design: Based on the hermeneutical philosophy, this study utilizes an exploratory and qualitative design to describe the incivility experiences among nursing students undertaking clinical practicum. Setting: This study was conducted at Y nursing college located in W city of South Korea. Participants: The participants were nursing students attending nursing colleges who were able to describe, in detail, their incivility experiences in clinical practice. These 32 senior-year students completed an entire course of clinical practice. Methods: Data were collected through focus group interviews from September to November 2017. The focus group comprised 6 subgroups, with four to seven individuals each. For data analysis, the research manager compared the transcriptions with the recordings to confirm their accuracy. Qualitative content analysis methods were used to analyze the transcription contents. Results: Based on the data analysis, 5 themes and 12 subheadings were derived from 131 significant statements. The derived themes included lack of respect, lack of role models, excessive demands, hostile behavior, and mean behavior. Conclusions: Nursing students felt neglected and disrespected during clinical practicum, and clinical practice guides made unreasonable demands rather than presenting examples as role models during the learning process. The students also experienced mean behaviors such as refusal and hostile acts. The findings of this study imply the necessity to promote clinical practicum environments that can reduce incivility experiences and empower nursing students undertaking clinical practicum education.