Abstract
The principal aim of the present study was to clarify how nurses who graduated after receiving physical assessment (PA) education at a nursing university and currently work at a hospital acquired PA techniques after finding employment. A semi-structured interview was conducted with seven nurses one to five years after graduation from a nursing university, and the results were analyzed using the qualitative synthesis method (KJ method).
Based on the results of the analysis, seven symbol marks were extracted: A (deepening of understanding of the purpose and importance of PA by assessing the position of PA in nursing practice), B (sharpening five senses by utilizing teaching materials and accumulating experiences in applying PA to real patients), C (improvement of judgment ability in nursing by comparing judgment process with others regarding PA findings), and so on.
It appears that, in basic nursing education, it is necessary to examine educational content that allows the significance and importance of PA to be realized and accumulate experiences in applying PA in actual patients starting from university education. These findings suggest that, in the future, it may be necessary to structuralize PA skills and investigate the content of education with a view to the process of acquiring postgraduate skills.
