Development and validation of a chronic disease nursing education program for enhancing clinical reasoning ability in undergraduate nursing students

This study developed a chronic disease nursing educational program to enhance clinical reasoning in nursing students and then tested it for effectiveness. Before and after completing the program’s five 90-minute sessions, 54 second-year students in a four-year nursing degree program at a university completed a self-administered survey to evaluate their clinical reasoning ability. The measure used was the Scale to assess the Critical Thinking of Clinical Nurses. Results showed significant improvement in total scores and in the reasoning subscale scores, indicating the overall effectiveness of the program. However, no significant improvement was found in any of the measure’s subscales other than reasoning. Those skills could, potentially, be enhanced through clinical practicum.