Perceptions of preceptorship in clinical practice after completion of a continuous professional development course- a qualitative study Part II (BMC Nursing)

Background: For health care professionals, clinical practice is a vital part of education, and in several countries, teaching is a regulated part of the role of nurses and health care staff. The added responsibility of taking on the teaching of students during clinical practice; thus, balancing clinical and educational demands, might lead to feelings of stress and burnout. Being a skilled and experienced professional is not automatically linked to being a skilled educator as teaching of a subject is a completely different story. Preceptors who participate in educational initiatives are better prepared to address challenges and are more satisfied with the preceptor role. The aim of the current study was to evaluate preceptors’ experiences of preceptorship in clinical practice after completion of a credit bearing continuous professional development course on advanced level. Methods: This was a small-scale interpretative qualitative study drawing data from focus group interviews and written accounts from reflective journals. Data were analysed through the process of naturalistic inquiry. Results: Our findings show that the participants, who took part in and completed the CPD course, had developed skills and competences they believed to be necessary to drive pedagogical development at their respective workplaces. This is illustrated by the main category Leading educational development and explained by four sub-categories: 1/ increased ability to give collegial support; 2/ increased trust in one’s abilities; 3/ increased emphasis on reflection; and 4/ increased professional status. Conclusions: A well-structured program based on the needs of preceptors and developed in partnership between educational and clinical settings seems to be successful in terms of preceptors’ perceived increase of their competence, abilities and professional status. What seems to be missing, not only from the current study but also from previous research, is to what extent properly prepared preceptors impact on student learning and this needs to be further investigated.