Iranian Journal of Medical Education

Introduction: Acquiring clinical skills is an important issue in nursing education. This study aimed to determine senior nursing students’ opinion toward their achievement level of clinical skills in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2008-2009 academic years.

Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, sixty students who were selected by census from those who were passing the last semester of the Nursing BSc program. Data collecting tool was a questionnaire on ordinal scale. It included 190 items on clinical skills regarding medical-surgical nursing in areas of caring patients with common medical–surgical diseases, nursing (care) procedures, performing and interpreting diagnostic tests, care before, during, and after diagnostic procedures, recording, medication administration, working with therapeutics equipments, and students' demographic information. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistical analysis.

Results: Most students believed that clinical skills of medical surgical nursing were 18.3%, 63.3%, 18.3% respectively as excellent, good, and average. Total mean score of clinical skills was 365.51±79.08 out of 570 and was reported as good. The best clinical competence reported to be in medication administration and nursing procedures, and the lowest competence reported to be in care before, during and after diagnostic procedures.

Conclusion: Most students reported their own clinical skills of medical surgical nursing as excellent and good. Since in some areas clinical skills reported as moderate to poor, or in some cases as not performed, it seems that an accurate evaluation of students’ clinical performance prior to graduation is highly needed. Clinical training programs also should be revised along with putting emphasis on its strength points.