Difficulties in Training Midwifery Students with Clinical Nursing Experience and their Educational Support

Purposes Midwifery students with clinical nursing experience frequently have difficulties in midwifery practicum although they aspire to pursue the study with clear purposes. Considering this situation, this study attempts to determine problems involved, understand how clinical nursing experience is utilized in midwifery training, and consider educational measures necessary in the training.

Participants and methods We conducted semi-structured interviews, based on an interview guide, with three students enrolled in a midwifery course of T College. The students were asked about the midwifery practicum they had experienced in the first year. Data from the interviews were classified into details of the subjective experience, educational advice given by faculty and clinical instructors, and details of the training, and these were qualitatively analyzed.

Results practicum Midwifery students with clinical nursing experience had clear purposes and motivation to pursue the study. However, there were many situations where self-esteem and self-efficacy were lower than any sense of achievement or satisfaction in the midwifery training. We found that students felt their clinical nursing experience useful include "communication skills", "general nursing skills", and "attitude towards the work by evaluating the situation of clinical staff". On the other hand, we also found that the students did not feel the clinical nursing experience useful include "difficulty in thinking about wellness-oriented midwifery process for healthy pregnant women", "feeling that the goals required in the training were more demanding than for midwifery students who have no nursing experience", and "irritation at the inability to make use of their experience". It may be inferred that the clinical experience caused difficulties in the learning because they need more time to study than the midwifery students without nursing experience, are physically less able to keep up, and suffer from mental stress due to the inability to make use of their experience.

Conclusions It became clear that students with clinical nursing experience have difficulties in the midwifery practicum because it was not possible to incorporate it effectively into their clinical experience. This may be ascribed to feelings of poor self-efficacy due to the inability to make use of the clinical experience as they experience conflicts between their prior experience and ideas, this occurs while trying to change a problem-oriented approach into the wellness-oriented midwifery process. The results suggest that it is necessary to consider educational measures that introduce reflective learning by examining the previous clinical nursing experience of the students.