Nurse preceptors' experience-based strategies for supporting learning in the ambulance service-A combined focus group and dyadic interview study

Abstract

Ambulance service organizations worldwide report about an expanding professional role, responsibilities and scope of practice for ambulance clinicians, resulting in discussions concerning educational design and desired professional competencies. To face the contemporary demands in ambulance care, non-technical skills are advocated and clinical practice considered fundamental for the development of these abilities. However, there is very little research concerning educational strategies for supporting the desired competencies for novice registered nurses in the ambulance service.

Aim: To describe and explore nurse preceptors' experience-based strategies for supporting registered nurses learning in the ambulance service.

Design: The study had an inductive and data-driven approach, guided by phenomenological epistemology.

Methods: Twenty-seven Swedish nurse preceptors were interviewed in three focus groups and four dyadic interviews between October 2019 and April 2020. The data were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis.

Findings: The nurse preceptors use several learning strategies, focusing on a socialization process and a clinical competence process, intertwined during clinical practice to support the development of a situated professional identity and a clinical decision-making competence. Supportive structures facilitate a progressive learning strategy when addressing desired skills and cognitive abilities in teamwork processes and clinical judgement.

Conclusion: Supporting novice clinicians, prior to and during clinical practice in the ambulance service, should include medical assessment skills, situation awareness and processes for effective teamwork. Further, novice clinicians need to develop complex cognitive abilities to deal with the dynamic nature of decision-making in ambulance care.

Impact: The study findings show contextual strategies, previously not described and desired competencies when supporting learning for registered nurses in the ambulance service. A theoretical grounding in episteme, techne, phronesis and situation awareness may guide educators at universities, managers in the ambulance service, preceptors and novice clinicians worldwide in the planning and performance of teaching and learning in the ambulance service.

Keywords: ambulance service; clinical practice; learning strategies; nurses; preceptor; reflexive thematic analysis.