Evaluating the preceptor role for pre-registration nursing and midwifery student clinical education.

Aim: The aim of this research is to evaluate the perceptions of the Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Midwife (RM) and Enrolled Nurse (EN) about their experience of preceptoring an undergraduate student within a large Local Health District in New South Wales (NSW) Australia.

Background: In the current Health Workforce Australia (HWA) literature, the term 'Clinical Supervisor' has subsumed the role of mentor, preceptor, buddy and facilitator of clinical practice. Preceptor in this paper describes the supervisory, facilitating and teaching role of the registered nurse in the clinical practice undergraduate nursing and midwifery educational pairing.

Design: A quantitative cross sectional design was used and data collected using the Clinical Preceptor Experience Evaluation Tool (CPEET), a previously validated and reliable survey tool.

Method: Nurses and Midwives across nine acute care facilities that preceptor undergraduate students were invited to complete the survey between March and May 2012.

Results: There were 337 survey respondents across nine acute hospitals included in this study (22.5% response rate). Differences were observed between preceptors who had training in precepting in three of the subscales. Differences were observed in all four subscales between those preceptors with access to university facilitators in their location and those without immediate access.

Conclusion: The majority of preceptors score highly on all subscales indicating they are generally satisfied with the role of precepting. Significant differences on several items suggest that some aspects of the role are more challenging and less satisfying than others.