Abstract

Background:Clinical evaluation is a critical component of nursing education, as it assesses nursing students' essential clinical competencies during their supervised clinical experiences and ensures safe and competent nursing practices. Globally, studies have revealed that nurse educators often find it challenging to fail or report students who demonstrate unsatisfactory clinical performance. These challenges arise at various levels, including student, personal, and institutional factors. In Pakistan, however, no studies have been conducted to discuss the challenges associated with failure to fail students with unsatisfactory clinical performance in nursing educational institutions. Given the significance of this issue, a study was needed to explore the perceptions and experiences of clinical educators, including faculty members and clinical preceptors, regarding this phenomenon. This study specifically aimed to understand these perceptions and experiences in the context of a private school of nursing and midwifery in Karachi, Pakistan.
Methodology: A qualitative descriptive exploratory design was used, with data collected from 12 clinical preceptors and faculty members at the private school of nursing and midwifery, Karachi, Pakistan, through semi-structured interviews. Data was analyzed using Creswell’s [1] content analysis steps.
Results: Five major themes evolved from data analysis: (i) identification of unsatisfactory behaviours during clinical performance; (ii) system based challenges faced by faculty members and clinical preceptors that hinder their decision; (iii) emotional challenges faced by faculty members and clinical preceptors that hinder their decision; (iv) creating possibilities of hand-holding of students; (v) way forward for overcoming critical challenges faced by faculty members and clinical preceptors.
Conclusion: The study revealed several challenges faced by clinical educators in evaluating nursing students in clinical settings and dealing with the failure to fail students who do not meet satisfactory performance levels. It also proposes strategies to address these challenges and ensure the production of safe and competent nurses for society.