2019 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 11-23
〔Purpose〕This study aims to reveal how to best facilitate the learning of nursing students during maternal nurse practicum, by drawing on their own childbirth and child-rearing experiences. In addition, we examine how such experiences shape the students’ learning processes and their ability to demonstrate empathy during patient interactions.
〔Method〕This study adopts a grounded theory approach to analyze 15 interviews of 3rd year nursing students’ with firsthand experience with both childbirth and raising children. The interviews were conducted after the students underwent maternal health nursing practicum at a private hospital in Japan.
〔Results〕12 categories of nursing students’ learning structures were identified as a result of this research: not wanting to go, thinking it would be a fun experience, retrospectively comparing own experiences as mothers, not wanting patients to undergo the same experience, feeling empathetic, feeling jealous or inferior, drawing on own experience, feeling difficulty providing support, refusing to abandon their preconceptions, holding a negative identity of themselves as mothers, rebuilding their own identities as mothers, and having their nursing identity affected.
〔Discussion〕 The findings of this study suggest that additional measures must be adopted to support nursing students who possess firsthand experience with childbirth and raising children. Such training could help to prevent students from superimposing their own experiences on their patients and raise the level of empathy students are able to provide during patient interactions.
