NURSE INTERNS SATISFACTION WITH THE CLINICAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: A CROSSSECTIONAL STUDY

Background: As part of nursing education clinical internship forms an integral part of the learning experience. Since nursing is a skills-based profession, clinical internship plays an important role in enabling a student to acquire professional skills and competencies as they seek to become registered nurse. Despite its importance, clinical internship can also be a source of frustration to students and can lead to some choosing to work away from the clinical nursing set-up. Objective: This study sought to assessnurse interns' satisfaction with the clinical learning environment. Methods:This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that was conducted at Uasin Gishu County hospitals. 70 qualified degree nurses were sampled with a response rate of 93%. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Ethical approval was sort from University of Eastern Africa, Baraton Ethics Review Board. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. Results: The study results showed that 97% of respondents expressed satisfaction with internship program. Satisfaction with the clinical learning environment was associated with hospital staff relationship with the interns: staff were interested in supervising interns (χ2=17.048, df=2, p=0.001), easier to approach (χ2= 34.72, df=2, p=0.000), gave feedback on performance (χ2= 8.49, df=2, p=0.021) and nurse managers allocating duties fairly χ2= 8.35, df=1, p=0.019). Conclusion: The study demonstrates that nurses on internship are happy with their preparation to practice nursing. Therefore, it is important to ensure that resources needed are availed to support student nurses during internship.