Clinical Reflection and Reasoning Competencies among Nursing Students in Health Science Universities: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

In the 21 st century, where information is at the tip of the fingers. Nurses' reasoning capacity is decreasing day by day, and it has to be changed by providing graduates a high- quality education and training them to reason critical. The study objective was to compare the clinical reflection and reasoning competencies of B.Sc. nursing students between colleges affiliated with the State Health University and Deemed-to-be Universities located in Mangalore, Karnataka, India. In this study, a quantitative research approach was employed, with a non-experimental descriptive cross-sectional research design. The study population consisted of students enrolled in colleges affiliated with the State Health University and Deemed-to-be Universities located in Mangalore. A total of 260 students were selected as samples using a purposive sampling technique. The data was collected using the validated Self-Assessment of Clinical Reflection and Reasoning (SACRR) tool. The findings indicate that B.Sc. nursing students from both health science universities possess adequate to high levels of clinical reflection and reasoning competencies across all domains. The overall proportion of students falling within the high to very high category was 89.2% in state health science and 89.4% in colleges deemed to be universities, indicating similar levels of overall clinical reflection and reasoning competencies. This suggests that both types of universities provide a comparable learning environment in fostering clinical reflection and reasoning skills among nursing students. However, in order to receive good quality of nursing care, critical thinking needs to be prioritised. So, it is important that the nursing institutions expertise the students in providing care with critical thinking for the better treatment and recovery of patients.