Determinants on levels of nursing faculty support towards student nurse midwives performance during midwifery clinical practice

Abstract

Background: This study focused on the midwifery clinical practice for student nurse midwives at Kenya medical training college and its constituent’s colleges. Chi square was used to establish the relationship between demographic factors, institutional support and social cultural factors, which correlated with midwifery clinical practice performance, for student nurse midwives during clinical training. Methodology; Mixed method was adopted where 300 final year Kenya registered community nurse students were randomly selected from 8 nursing campuses. Data was collected using a pretested, self-administered questionnaire, Focused group discussions from students, elicited the qualitative data. Ethical approval was granted by Great Lakes University of Kisumu ethical review committee and the Kenya Medical Training College Institutional Research Committee. Results; Data was analyzed using SPSS version 19 and presented using descriptive and inferential statistics whereby logistical regression was used to compare the outcomes. Qualitative data was transcribed into themes for comparison with quantitative statistical findings. The study identified crucial determinants of student nurse midwives performance, during midwifery clinical practice. This study found that there was significant relationship between good institutional support and clinical practice performance, in clinical assessments and progress report scores. Strong social cultural influence, was significantly related to clinical practice performance with those with strong influence, performing poorer than those that had weak influence [OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.26-0.89, p = 0.02]. However, demographic characteristics were not significantly related to performance in this particular study. Conclusion; The study concludes that faculty and clinical practice environment support was significant to good clinical practice performance and a good consideration in student nurse midwives training. Social cultural factors should be considered when training midwives, considering the sensitivity, of reproductive health issues among different communities in Kenya. Recommendation; The study recommends that nursing and midwifery faculties should enhance policies for lecturers and clinical instructors to teach and guide students during clinical practice. Social cultural issues should be addressed at training level, to optimize clinical practice performance and institutional support during student clinical practice.