Navigating Clinical Shock: Facilitating Nursing Students’ Smooth Transition to the Workplace
Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted clinical training for nursing students, leading to "reality shock" as they entered the workforce without sufficient hands-on experience.
Design: This qualitative study employed a 120-minute focus group interview conducted in July 2022.
Results: Nine senior nursing students from various educational institutions in Taiwan participated in the focus group interview. Most were female (88.9%) with an average age of 22. Thematic analysis revealed three major needs: (1) self-adjustment due to reduced clinical exposure, (2) more diverse, simulation-based teaching aligned with clinical realities, and (3) extended pre-employment training to compensate for practical skill gaps.
Conclusion: The suspension of clinical placements during the pandemic left nursing students underprepared for professional practice. To support a smoother transition, nursing schools should adopt innovative, technology-enhanced teaching strategies, while hospitals must strengthen onboarding programs and mentorship. Addressing these gaps is essential to improving the readiness and retention of new nurses in the post-pandemic era. This study contributes insights into how educational and institutional support can be restructured to better equip students for professional nursing roles in crisis settings.
Full Text:
PDFDOI: https://doi.org/10.20849/ijsn.v10i2.1516
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
International Journal of Studies in Nursing ISSN 2424-9653 (Print) ISSN 2529-7317 (Online)
Copyright © July Press
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the 'julypress.com' domain to your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.