Registered nurses’ experiences supervising international nursing students in the clinical setting

Preceptors' experiences of supervising internationally educated nurses attending a bridging program: An interview study

BACKGROUND

Internationally educated nurses attending a bridging program must demonstrate clinical competence and meet requirements to apply for a nursing license in Sweden.

OBJECTIVES

To describe preceptors' experiences of supervising internationally educated nurses undergoing clinical practice education during a bridging program.

DESIGN

A qualitative descriptive study.

SETTINGS

Two universities offering the 1-year bridging program for nurses with a nursing degree from outside European Union/European Economic Area and Switzerland.

PARTICIPANTS

Fifteen preceptors, all registered nurses, who supervised internationally educated nurses were included.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews were performed, and data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS

Supervising internationally educated nurses was not the same as supervising nursing students and raised feelings of both joy and frustration. Preceptors had to adapt supervision to the student's nursing knowledge and skills. They had to help students communicate in Swedish and form good relationships with other students, patients, and other professionals. Most preceptors requested more information about the student's nurse education, country of education/cultural background, and previous work experiences. Mixed experiences of support from the university, first-line managers, and colleagues were reported.

CONCLUSIONS

Being a preceptor for internationally educated nurses is a challenge, and supervision training is important for managing preceptorship. To supervise students based on their level of knowledge and skills, more information must be shared with the preceptor. Encounters with others are of importance in the training, where teamwork and person-centered care must be in focus, both in prior theoretical education and in clinical practice education.

Understanding and optimising support resources to facilitate CALD student and supervisor allied health fieldwork experiences

BACKGROUND

Although fieldwork supervisors and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students can experience challenges during allied health placements, there is little holistic understanding of how they view and use support resources to address these challenges. This study sought to identify, codify, and map the perceived value attached to support resources used or sought by CALD students and fieldwork supervisors and to ascertain areas where they could be optimised and better presented to users.

METHODS

We conducted a thematic analysis to examine interview and open-ended survey responses from CALD students (n = 18) and fieldwork supervisors (n = 161) respectively.

FINDINGS

The six generated themes depicted different patterns of perceived value in university and non-university support resources and spanned three levels of specificity: general, discipline-contextualised, and individualised. Fieldwork supervisors valued a staged approach to support resource design and use for CALD students commencing with general level resources to build foundational language skills and socio-cultural familiarisation and moving on to include disciple-contextualised supports, preplacement mechanisms to monitor student readiness, and formalised mechanisms to enable tailoring of placements. CALD students, however, often undervalued institutional general resources relative to discipline-contextualised resources. The commonality of support resources valued and sought by supervisors from different fields suggests they could be optimised for delivery via an inter-professional community of practice.

CONCLUSION

Identifying and mapping the perceived value attached to support resources provides actionable insights into how to enhance the 'fit' between resources and user needs. Drawing the often-fragmented support resources into a cohesive ecosystem focused around perceived value at different levels of specificity allows CALD students and educators to better conceptualise the types of benefits that can accrue from taking a broader and staged approach to fieldwork placement preparations. Knowing this ecosystem encapsulates what prior uses find of value may enhance perceptions of resource relevance in the minds of new users.

Registered nurses' experiences and perceptions of supervising international nursing students in a clinical setting - A qualitative study

AIM

The aim of the study was to examine the experiences and perceptions of Indian RNs who supervise Norwegian undergraduate nursing students during their clinical practice in India.

BACKGROUND

The globalization process has generated a need for registered nurses (RNs) to develop cultural competence. As a result, nursing education and policy need to respond to the challenging nature of global health and prepare RNs to work with diverse cultures by enhancing their cultural competence to help them encounter patients from different cultural backgrounds. Yet, the research investigating the experience of supervisors in non-western countries receiving students from western countries is sparse DESIGN: An exploratory descriptive design.

METHODS

Eight individual semi-structured interviews were undertaken by Indian Registered nurses, supervising Norwegian nursing students. Three of the interviews were conducted in their workplace in India, while the rest were carried out using Zoom conference due to the COVID19 pandemic. The interviews were conducted between January - December 2020. Inductive qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

Thematic analysis elicited four main themes: 1) Preparation to receive international students, 2) The role of supervising international students, 3) Learning from the students, 4) Challenges of supervising international students CONCLUSIONS: Participants provided valuable insights into the role of supervising international nursing students in India. This insight is considered important since many students from Western countries go to non-Western countries for international exchanges. The study highlights the fact that the method of supervision is connected to the culture and is different in Western and non-Western countries. Even though they acknowledged several challenges with having international students, supervisors emphasized that having international students was a positive experience and that they learned from them.

Challenges, coping responses and supportive interventions for international and migrant students in academic nursing programs in major host countries: a scoping review with a gender lens

Background

International and migrant students face specific challenges which may impact their mental health, well-being and academic outcomes, and these may be gendered experiences. The purpose of this scoping review was to map the literature on the challenges, coping responses and supportive interventions for international and migrant students in academic nursing programs in major host countries, with a gender lens.

Methods

We searched 10 databases to identify literature reporting on the challenges, coping responses and/or supportive interventions for international and migrant nursing students in college or university programs in Canada, the United-States, Australia, New Zealand or a European country. We included peer-reviewed research (any design), discussion papers and literature reviews. English, French and Spanish publications were considered and no time restrictions were applied. Drawing from existing frameworks, we critically assessed each paper and extracted information with a gender lens.

Results

One hundred fourteen publications were included. Overall the literature mostly focused on international students, and among migrants, migration history/status and length of time in country were not considered with regards to challenges, coping or interventions. Females and males, respectively, were included in 69 and 59% of studies with student participants, while those students who identify as other genders/sexual orientations were not named or identified in any of the research. Several papers suggest that foreign-born nursing students face challenges associated with different cultural roles, norms and expectations for men and women. Other challenges included perceived discrimination due to wearing a hijab and being a ‘foreign-born male nurse’, and in general nursing being viewed as a feminine, low-status profession. Only two strategies, accessing support from family and other student mothers, used by women to cope with challenges, were identified. Supportive interventions considering gender were limited; these included matching students with support services' personnel by sex, involving male family members in admission and orientation processes, and using patient simulation as a method to prepare students for care-provision of patients of the opposite-sex.

Conclusion

Future work in nursing higher education, especially regarding supportive interventions, needs to address the intersections of gender, gender identity/sexual orientation and foreign-born status, and also consider the complexity of migrant students’ contexts.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-021-00678-0.