Assessment of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) Regarding Clinical Competence and Stressors: Nursing Students' Perspectives

Background: Clinical education is one of the important and basic principles in nursing
education which is accepted by all programmers and managers of educational programs of
this field as the main part of nursing education. The assessment of clinical competence is
therefore an important issue in nursing education and the utilization of objective structured
clinical evaluation (OSCE) for that purpose is considered very important. The skills
component in nursing-related subjects contributes to at least 50% of the content of these
subjects, with this high proportion also requiring that any assessment should reflect this
significant emphasis on the skills (psychomotor) component. Objective: The aim of this study
was to assess objective structured clinical Examination’s regarding clinical competence and
stressors among undergraduate nursing students. Setting: It was carried out at critical care
and emergency nursing department, faculty of nursing, Damanhour University. Subjects: This
study involved 85 undergraduate nursing students. Tools: Assessment of Objective Structured
Clinical Examination regarding clinical competence and stressors structure questionnaire
was used to collect data. The questionnaire consists of 20 statements. 10 statements related to
clinical competence and the other related to stressors. For each statement students were
asked to rate their responses on a point scale rating from 1-5. (1) For strongly disagree, (2)
for disagree, (3) for not sure, (4) for agree and (5) for strongly agree. Results: It was found
that the majority of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they received enough
information, appropriate repetition of OSCE, the quality of information was quiet well, OSCE
is a standardized exam for all students, OSCE is a fair exam, OSCE minimizes chances of
failing, students prepare differently for OSCE than for other clinical examinations, OSCE
provides them with practical and useful experience, OSCE chance for developing confidence to conduct similar procedure on real patients, OSCE scores truly reflect competence in
clinical skills, OSCE has a positive impact on clinical learning. Most of the studied sample
disagreed or strongly disagreed that level of stress was low, time to complete procedure or
reading instructions was enough. Conclusion: Nursing students perceived OSCE as suitable
method which improves their clinical competence. But there was time limitation while its
implementation and the majority of students considered it as one of the important factors in
producing stress in OSCE. Recommendations: Determine time needed for each procedure
and accommodate OSCE, and Increase frequencies of OSCE through open lab hour.