Advanced student preparation (pre-planning) for the nursing clinical experience

In most schools of nursing, students are required to prepare in advance for their clinical experience by obtaining information about their assigned patient(s). Precursory data regarding the patient's current health status obtained in an "assignment" directs the student to research the gathered information in nursing textbooks, journals, or other applicable resources. The researched information is used to prepare the individual patient's nursing plan of care. This procedure is usually referred to as "pre-planning."

There are several possible methods which can be utilized for students to obtain patient assignments. These include instructor assigned/student gathered, instructor assigned/instructor gathered, student made, staff made, and a canbination of these methods.

In a questionnaire survey, faculty and students fron 15 National League for Nursing (NLN) accredited associate degree programs of nursing identified the instructor assigned/student gathered pre-planning technique as the predominant method utilized and preferred. The major possible benefits of pre-planning cited were researching medical diagnosis, anticipating actual nursing diagnoses, researching medications, and researching nursing interventions. The major disadvantage to pre-planning was cited as the time consuming factor, and the day before the clinical experience was identified as the preferred time for pre-planning. The majority of faculty respondents stated that their programs utilized standards or defined criteria to guide pre-planning activities. Faculty and students identified patient data, medical diagnosis, and surgery as major patient information considered necessary to gather during pre-planning. However, many other items were identified as important in the assessment of the patient to be able to develop the nursing care plan.

It was concluded from the study that the faculty of nursing educational programs need to develop standards for pre-planning and to make informed decisions about the best type(s) of pre-planning methods to utilize for their programs/courses. The purpose of pre-planning ultimately is to provide a better learning experience for the student, as well as improving patient care. The topic of pre-planning, therefore, warrants further study.