A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY REGARDING STUDENT EVALUATION OF AN OSCE IN COMMUNITY HEALTH NURSING CLINICAL COURSE AT ST. JOHNS COLLEGE OF NURSING, BANGALORE

Background:The Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) is a comprehensive, structured and consistent approach for assessing aspects of the students clinical competence with maintenance of high objectivity. Aim of the Study:To assess student evaluation of an OSCE in community health nursing clinical course at St. Johns College of Nursing. Materials and Methods: Study Design: A descriptive cross sectional study design was used for the study. Study Setting:The study was conducted in St. Johns College of Nursing. Sample: A non probability convenient sample of (33) Nursing students who completed their community health nursing OSCE examination was selected for the study. Tool of Data Collection:A self administered questionnaire (Pierre et al., 2004 OSCE evaluation sheet) was used It is divided into 4 sections which contain 32 items. Only 25 items of Pierre et al., 2004 questionnaire were used in this study and few items were modified to suit the current setting and to give a clear meaning. Results: OSCE was considered as a fair examination method by 81.82 percentage of students and 72.73 % of them felt that it provides a true measure of essential clinical skills. (81.82%) of the studied students reported that, OSCE is less stressful than other exams and still (30.30 %) felt that the exam was stressful. Conclusion: OSCE is a realistic assessment for the community health nursing clinical course. It could assess a wide range of learned materials it is a fair exam and covered a wide range of knowledge. Recommendation:The present study recommended that, OSCE should be implemented in Community Health Nursing and continued to be used as a method of evaluating clinical practice when the students are posted in urban and rural posting as a practice before the final practical exam.