Physical assessment contribute nursing students competence to identify patients need for help earlier, articulate clinical reasoning, prevent and give early intervention before the patients’ health situation develops and aggravate and contribute to patient safety. It is important to ensure that teaching and learning models in physical assessment skills are appropriate in an undergraduate nursing curriculum throughout the education. Nursing students are dependent on preceptors to help them find good and appropriate learning situations related to ordinary nursing tasks, articulate clinical reasoning, and skills related to physical assessment when in clinical rotation.
The aim of this study is to explore how the educational units and learning environment influence nursing students’ use of physical assessment in clinical rotation and transformation into clinical competence and clinical judgment and further ensure patient safety.
A triangulation of qualitative approach, with participatory observations and stimulated recall interviews, and focus group interviews are used.