Nursing students' exposure to violence in clinical practice and violence management competence levels.

Introduction: The violence nursing students experience in the clinic may affect their attitudes towards the profession.

Aim: This study was conducted to determine nursing students' exposure to violence during their clinical practice and their violence management competence levels.

Design: This was a two-centred, descriptive, and correlational study.

Participants: A total of 512 nursing students from two universities in Türkiye participated in this study.

Methods: The study data was collected between March and April 2023 with the Student Information Form, Violence Exposure Form, and Management of Workplace Violence Competence Scale for Nursing Students. Institutional permission and ethics committee approval were obtained before starting the study (Date: 05/01/2023, No: 50). Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test and linear regression analysis were used to evaluate the data. Statistical significance was accepted as p < 0.05.

Results: It was determined that 17.4 % (n = 89) of the participant students felt competent in managing violence, and 94.3 % (n= 483) were concerned about being exposed to violence at various levels. In these results, 20.5 % (n = 105) of them were exposed to violence during clinical practice, 60.9 % (n = 64) of whom experienced verbal violence and 52.3 % (n = 55) psychological violence. The total mean score from the violence management competence scale was 103.29 ± 16.64. No statistically significant difference was found between the scale total and subscale scores according to gender (p > 0.05). The scale total scores of fourth-grade students with a good perceived academic success and who received training on coping with violence were statistically significantly higher (p˂0.05). The regression model created between the scale score and students' perceived academic success and receiving white code training (Training on the use of the alarm system that will enable security guards to reach the scene as soon as possible in cases where healthcare workers are exposed to all kinds of violence.) was statistically significant (F = 23.108, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Some of the students participating in the study experienced violence in clinical practices. Their violence management competence levels were good. It can be said that academic success, coping with violence, and white code training are useful in increasing competence levels.