Pre-registration nursing students’ experience of caring for cancer patients

The preparation of nurses caring for cancer patients remains a topical subject. The recent emphasis on the preparation of an effective and informed workforce for cancer care at all nursing levels is significant, particularly as the majority of previous studies have traditionally focused on post-registration preparation of qualified nurses. Currently, there is limited information on the preparation of pre-registered nursing students and little is known about the experiences of these students, especially during their initial exposure to cancer patients. Recently, changes have also been made to the pre-registration nursing programmes in the UK in line with national recommendations leading to much earlier exposures to patient care in practice. This study provides information about nursing students’ experiences of caring for cancer patients. Using self-report questionnaires each comprising of 21 Likert scale items, a survey was conducted on a total of 134 students (response rate: 88%) enrolled on the common foundation programme at the end of the first year of their undergraduate nursing programme. Data collected included information about the types of clinical settings where students were exposed to cancer patients, perceptions of their experiences with cancer patients and aspects of educational and clinical inputs perceived as helpful in preparing them to care for cancer patients. Additional insight into the students’ experience was further obtained from semi-structured interviews conducted from a total of nine students drawn from the three categories of experiences they identified: positive, non-positive and mixed. The findings and implications for the preparation of pre-registration nursing students in caring for cancer patients were discussed in relation to the theoretical input, clinical support and the use of reflection in practice.