Building Nursing Students’ Confidence through the Integration of Night-Shift Clinical

Abstract

Background. With a shortage of clinical placements, nursing faculty, and a growing nursing shortage, alternate clinical placements and experiences must be explored. Traditionally, students have been placed on day shifts, leading to competitive and saturated units with limited ability to participate in care and translate the knowledge they have acquired in the clinical setting. This study examined the satisfaction and confidence of students on both day- and night-shift clinical placements. Methods. A comparative quasiexperimental study was conducted using a modified version of the National League of Nursing’s Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning tool to compare students’ satisfaction and confidence in 40 students who participated in day- and night-shift medical-surgical clinical rotations. This was examined using statistics for each of the survey’s 12 questions. Results. One of the questions related to overall confidence with the clinical experience had higher means in the night-shift clinical group than the day-shift clinical group but was not statistically significant. The remainder of the questions related to confidence with the clinical demonstrated no statistical difference between the groups. There was no statistical difference between the groups for any questions related to satisfaction. Conclusion. Nursing programs should consider supplementing night-shift clinical as an alternative to day-shift clinical.