Assessing the Confidence of Graduating Pre-Registration Nurses to Use and Embed Respiratory Clinical Skills in Practice: A Mixed Methods Analysis.

Abstract

Background: The incidence of respiratory disease is increasing; all nurses will care for respiratory patients during their career. There is disparity in the teaching of pre-registration respiratory nursing education. In the UK, revised Nursing and Midwifery Council educational standards provided the opportunity to review provision of UK respiratory nursing education. This study was conducted to assess and make educational recommendations on the teaching, learning and student nurses’ confidence to apply respiratory nursing skills in clinical practice at the point of qualifying (registration). Method: A cross-sectional survey design. The survey was distributed to final year pre-registration nursing students in the UK via social media over a 10-week period (summer 2021), with 152 student responses across 29 Universities. Where available on social media, nursing departments in UK universities were contacted by one of the authors [NJR] to aid dissemination. Results: Less than half of the students felt completely/fairly confident about their knowledge and understanding of respiratory anatomy and physiology (46.1%), respiratory pathophysiology (32.2%). Line of argument synthesis constructed four themes, around student confidence, aligning the quantitative and qualitative data: • Disparity in teaching methods, application, and position in the programme, • Positive respiratory learning experiences in clinical practice, • Insufficient time and narrow disease scope of respiratory education, • Application of personal learning experiences of respiratory illness. Conclusion: We report lower levels of student confidence in key respiratory knowledge and skills, with disparity in UK HEI teaching.