Background: The School of Nursing in which this research was conducted uses a problem based learning approach in clinical nursing courses. Although the skills required for problem solving, and those in nursing care planning, are similar and therefore, support each other in the learning environment, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of this teaching strategy on problem solving and nursing care planning.
Aim: The aim of this study was to implement a change in the clinical nursing course in the third year of the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) programme and determine if this change improved students' problem solving and care planning.
Method: A nine-step problem solving process to deal with problem scenarios was introduced. We hoped that consistent use of this systematic process would improve students' problem solving and care planning skills in the classroom and the clinical area. In order to determine change in problem solving and care planning skills we compared (a) the previous third year student performance on semester I and II assessments with those of the study participants and (b) results at the end of semester I with end of semester II within the study cohort. Findings from these analyses are presented in this paper.