An evaluation of nurses' clinical teaching role in Turkey

A study of 91 nurses in Hacettepe University Adult Hospital in Turkey investigated how effective clinical nursing teaching was and analyzed the reasons for their teaching performance. Questionnaires about patient care, management, research, and teaching role were administered to the nurses in the study. The results of the questionnaires were expressed in numerical and percentage terms. Nurses were most effective in providing the patient care materials and equipment requested by students, helping students to adjust to a clinical environment and regarding students as team members. In contrast, nurses were least effective at discussing patients with students and at evaluating the patient care provided by students. The reasons that nurses gave for their clinical teaching performance were those of being overloaded with work, adhering to the view that teaching is not a nursing role, suffering from a lack of equipment, and the problem of students working slowly and hence wasting nurses' time. The nurses' recommendations for improving clinical teaching performance were those of increasing the co-operation between nursing schools and hospitals, the introduction of clinical nurse specialists, placing more emphasis on clinical teaching in nursing education and providing training courses on clinical teaching.