Exploring the barriers to Registered Nurses undertaking clinical teaching in clinical settings: A qualitative descriptive study

AIM: The study aimed to explore and describe the barriers affecting Registered Nurses in undertaking clinical teaching in clinical settings. The exploration was based on the experiences of Registered Nurses at a selected teaching hospital in Namibia. The researcher intended to identify strategies that could be used to mitigate the negative effects of barriers to effective clinical teaching. DESIGN: A qualitative explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used. METHODS: Purposive sampling was used to select 16 participants. Data were collected through in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews, which were audio‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Clinical teaching is negatively affected by several barriers that hamper clinical teaching and nursing students' learning outcomes. Seven main themes were identified: (1) participants' understanding of clinical teaching; (2) organizational barriers; (3) patient barriers; (4) Registered Nurse barriers; (5) student barriers; (6) training institution barriers; and (7) strategies to mitigate barriers to clinical teaching. CONCLUSION: The findings revealed that several barriers negatively affect clinical nursing education and hamper the clinical teaching and learning of nursing students. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: This study may assist in the development of targeted interventions that address the barriers that hinder clinical teaching at teaching hospitals. Additionally, this study could assist in improving the health care that is provided by nursing students to patients. The findings may assist with improved quality by reducing nursing students' theory‐practice gap and by promoting collaboration between Registered Nurses and nurse educators in clinical settings.