Nursing students' experiences of safety threats and coping processes during clinical practice: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Nursing students are exposed to various safety incidents during clinical practice. Frequent safety incidents cause stress, undermining their will to continue studying. Therefore, more effort is needed to analyse the scope of training safety threats perceived by nursing students and their coping processes to improve the clinical practice environment.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore nursing students' safety threat experiences and coping processes during clinical practice using focus group interviews.

DESIGN: A qualitative study.

SETTINGS: Four nursing departments located in the G and J cities in South Korea.

PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen third- and fourth-year nursing students with more than six weeks of clinical practice experience. Participants who had experienced safety-threatening incidents during their clinical practice were selected. The inclusion criteria were indirect experiences of safety-threatening incidents and exposure to incivility or physical violence from patients or caregivers. Students with no prior experience of safety incidents were excluded from this study.

METHODS: Data were collected through focus group interviews conducted between 9 December and 28, 2021.

RESULTS: The five main data categories extracted were safety threat cognition, action-reaction, coping process, reinforcement experience, and reinforcing conditions, and thirteen subcategories were extracted. Nursing students experienced a growing sense of responsibility for their own and patients' safety through exposure to safety-threatening situations and coping processes in clinical practice. Ultimately, they reached the stage of the core category: "seeking to protect own and patients' safety while performing the dual role."

CONCLUSIONS: This study delivers basic data on the safety threat situations experienced by nursing students during clinical practice and their coping processes. It can be used in developing clinical practice safety education programs for nursing students.