Nursing students experienced personal inadequacy, vulnerability and transformation during their patient care encounter: A qualitative meta-synthesis

OBJECTIVES: To identify, appraise and synthesize the best available evidence exploring nursing students' experiences of professional patient care encounters in a hospital unit.

DESIGN: The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidelines were followed and a meta-synthesis was conducted.

DATA SOURCES: Qualitative research articles were considered for inclusion in the review, and JBI's meta-aggregative approach to synthesizing qualitative evidence was followed. An extensive search for relevant literature was undertaken in scientific databases.

REVIEW METHODS: Data were extracted from the included research articles, and qualitative research findings were pooled using the Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument. This involved categorization of findings on the basis of similarity of meaning and aggregation of these categories to produce a comprehensive set of synthesized findings.

RESULTS: A total of five research articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The review process resulted in 46 subcategories that were aggregated into 13 categories. The categories generated four synthesized findings: personal existence; personal learning and development; being a professional fellow human; and clinical learning environment.

CONCLUSIONS: We meta-synthesized that: Nursing students experienced personal inadequacy, vulnerability and a transformation during their patient care encounter.