Experienced career perspectives of nursing students and their supervisors in learning departments: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Due to the nursing shortage, positive work environments are needed to retain (student) nurses. More and attractive internships for students need to be ensured. In order to provide more internship places learning departments were developed, which are characterized by a buddy system and supervisors who coaches at least two students during a shift. Gaining knowledge about career perspectives and job satisfaction is essential within the context of learning departments, as both will contribute to quality and safety of care and will support lifelong learning. The current study aimed to investigate how nurses and nursing students working and learning in learning departments experience preconditions for career opportunities. METHODS: Using a generic qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted through videocalls between March and April 2021 in the Netherlands. Inductive qualitative analysis based on ‘The Data Analysis Spiral’ was used. RESULTS: Career perspective is explored among six students and seven nurses. Five main themes were generated for both nurses and students; (1) personal goals; (2) skills and self-efficacy; (3) mentoring; (4) job satisfaction; and (5) career perspectives. Within the five main themes, subcategories were developed from 198 codes related to career opportunities. Results show career perspective is experienced differently. For students, the requirements to experience career perspective seem largely existing, as learning departments fits with personal goals, increases self-efficacy and provide coaching mentoring. Students felt learning departments contributed positively to becoming more skilled in working independently and collaborating with fellow students. This resulted in students feeling well prepared for the future. Nurses’ career perspectives varied from wanting more personal development to experiencing opportunities due to having great colleagues, a challenging patient category, satisfaction from sharing knowledge and a decreasing physical workload. Nurses who had affinity with coaching students experience more career perspective on learning departments. CONCLUSION: Interviews provided in-depth insights. Interviews gave in-depth insight into the elements of learning departments that contribute to career perspectives of (student)nurses. The results can be used by nursing supervisors, teachers and policymakers to optimize nurses’ work environment, to eliminate leave intentions and improve quality of patientcare. The results should be taken into consideration when coaching students, developing manuals and implementing or optimizing learning departments. Future research is recommended to investigate which tools/interventions are effective for nurses and other healthcare professionals to support career guidance.