Study challenges idea student nurses need prior care experience

Research by academics at the University of Nottingham has also found that prior care experience does not prevent nurses from experiencing a reality shock upon qualifying.

“This is good news in the current climate where we need to encourage more students into the nursing profession”

Joanne Lymn

The study, published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, has challenged the widely held belief that individuals wishing to embark on nurse training need to have care experience beforehand.

Providing nursing care that is compassionate is one of the tenets of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s standards of proficiency and also features in the regulator’s code of conduct.

Undertaking paid care experience prior to embarking on nurse training has been suggested as a potential means of improving the compassion of nurses, noted the study.

However, until recently, there was a lack of evidence based to support this claim.

Nursing researchers at the University of Nottingham were commissioned to undertake a piece of research to look at how paid prior care experiences impacted the compassion of nursing students.

The participants in the study were pre-registration nursing students attending one of three different universities and individuals who had previously taken part in a Health Education England paid prior care experience pilot.

The research used mixed methods, where 220 people completed a questionnaire, 10 people had phone interviews and eight were involved in a focus group.

The findings of the study suggest that paid prior care experience did not offer any long-term benefits in relation to developing nursing students’ caring and compassionate behaviours.

Researchers found that prior care experience has both positive and negative effects on students’ compassionate values and behaviours, however these positive effects did not extend to qualification.

The questionnaire measured outcomes such as emotional intelligence, compassion satisfaction and fatigue, resilience, psychological empowerment and career commitment.

Notably, no statistically significant differences were found in any of the outcomes between those with and without paid prior care experience.

But a statistically significant increase in compassion fatigue was identified in both groups of participants after qualifying, which researchers said could be due to the challenges of contemporary nursing practice.

Meanwhile, paid prior care experience did not prevent participants from experiencing reality shock on becoming a student or on qualification.

Researchers recommended that developing strategies to support resilience and empowerment among nurses could prevent compassion fatigue and therefore promote high-quality compassionate care and nursing workforce retention.

Overall, the research concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend paid prior care experience as a means to improving nursing students’ compassion.

Joanne Lymn

The piece of research was led by Professor Joanne Lymn, head of the school of health sciences at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Lymn said: “This longitudinal study showed that paid prior care experience did not offer any long-term benefits in relation to developing nursing students’ caring and compassionate behaviours.

“Positive and negative impacts of prior care experience were identified but the positive impacts did not extend to qualification.

“The data do not support mandating a period of paid care experience prior to commencing nursing training.”

She added: “This is good news in the current climate where we need to encourage more students into the nursing profession.”