Exploring how reflective practice training affects nurse interns’ critical thinking disposition and communication skills
Intended for healthcare professionals
Evidence and practice    

Exploring how reflective practice training affects nurse interns’ critical thinking disposition and communication skills

Amal Ibrahim Khalil Assistant professor, College of Nursing-Jeddah, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and professor, Faculty of Nursing, Menoufia University, Alexandria, Egypt
Ebtsam Abou Hashish Assistant professor, College of Nursing-Jeddah, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and professor, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.

Why you should read this article:
  • To increase your awareness of the benefits of reflective practice in nursing

  • To explore the relationships between reflective practice, critical thinking and communication skills

  • To consider introducing reflective practice training in preceptorship or orientation programmes

Background It is useful for nurses to be able to engage in reflective practice. Reflective practice is an essential aspect of experiential learning.

Aim To explore how reflective practice training during an internship programme in Saudi Arabia affected nurse interns’ critical thinking disposition and interpersonal communication competency.

Method A convenience sample of 93 senior nursing students undertaking the internship programme at a nursing college in a university in Saudi Arabia answered a questionnaire before and after taking part in reflective practice training sessions. The questionnaire used three tools: the Reflective Practice Questionnaire; the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale; and the Interpersonal Communication Competency Scale.

Results After the training, the overall mean scores for reflective practice, critical thinking disposition and interpersonal communication competency were significantly higher than before the training. Reflective practice had a positive correlation with critical thinking disposition and interpersonal communication competency. It also had predictive capability for the variance in critical thinking disposition and interpersonal communication competency (R2=0.798 and R2=0.553, respectively, P<0.001).

Conclusion Reflective practice training provided to nurse interns in Saudi Arabia improved their reflective practice, critical thinking and interpersonal communication. Reflective practice training would be a useful addition to pre-graduate nurse education and to preceptorship or orientation programmes for newly recruited nurses.

Nursing Management. doi: 10.7748/nm.2022.e2045

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

@ebtsam_aly

Correspondence

abouhashishe@ksau-hs.edu.sa

Conflict of interest

None declared

Khalil AI, Abou Hashish E (2022) Exploring how reflective practice training affects nurse interns’ critical thinking disposition and communication skills. Nursing Management. doi: 10.7748/nm.2022.e2045

Published online: 12 April 2022

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