Quality of clinical education – A three-year follow-up among undergraduate nursing students in Finland and Sweden

The purpose of this study was to compare the experiences of a group of Swedish and two Finnish groups of student nurses (n=86) on the quality of clinical education over time. The data was collected using an instrument including four factors. In the comparison of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011/2012 (n=86), there were no statistically significant differences between years in the whole data. In year 2009 Swedish students (n=41) evaluated clinical preception and learning in clinical education lower than Finnish students (n=45). In the year 2010 Finnish students’ evaluated clinical preception lower than Swedish students. In year 2011/2012 Swedish students evaluated learning objectives in clinical education lower than Finnish students. The follow-up group and the dropout group did not differ from each other regarding the background variables or reports on the quality of clinical education. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2014, 15(4), 305-319) Keywords: Clinical education, preceptorship, quality, student supervision