Undergraduate nursing students’ difficulties during clinical training: perception of the main causes

Background: Clinical training modules are developed during the undergraduate nursing degree to promote the development of critical thinking, the acquisition of skills, and the confrontation with the complexity of nursing care in real clinical settings. Objectives: To identify nursing students’ main difficulties while interacting with patients during clinical training, as well as the underlying causes. Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted with a mixed-methods approach in a sample of 2nd-year students of the undergraduate nursing degree during clinical training. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 and qualitative data were analyzed using Bardin’s content analysis technique. Results: The sample was composed of 90 students. Most of them were women (81.11%), and aged 19 to 31 years. The main difficulties identified related to the communication with people who were non-communicative or unable to communicate verbally, agitated, confused, disoriented, and/or aggressive. The most common causes included the lack of training in communication and the lack of experience in the use of relational techniques. Conclusion: It seems of the upmost important to invest in students’ training using methodologies that promote the systematization and operationalization of the care relationship.