Correlation of Academic and Clinical Practice Performance of Nursing Students in an Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing Course; at Woldia University, Ethiopia

Abstract

Mastering clinical practice is one of the hardest tasks of nursing school. It is necessary to combine professional theoretical courses with clinical nursing practice in order to qualify competent and qualified nurses. The connection between the theoretical training and clinical nursing practice, however, has not been the subject of any research. Therefore, the aim of this study was to ascertain the connection between obstetrics and gynecology theoretical courses and obstetrics and gynecology clinical practice. To assess theoretical and Clinical Practice Correlations of Comprehensive nursing students’ performance in an Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing Course at Woldia University, Ethiopia. A retrospective cross-sectional study employing a quantitative data collection method was carried out. The data was obtained using a data extraction checklist between September 01/2022 and September 20/2022. A total of 252 people were involved in the study, including 136 regular nursing students, 93 summer nursing students, and 23 post-basic students. Data was gathered by three nursing department academic staff members. EPI data was used to enter the obtained data, which was then exported to SPSS version 22 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were performed, and the Spearman’s rho correlation (rs) and coefficient of determination (coef) were declared significant at a p-value of .05 and a 95% confidence interval (CI). A total of 252 study participants comprised 174 (69.1%) male and 74 (30.9%) female nursing students included in the current study Clinical success in obstetrics and gynecology was strongly and favorably correlated with academic success in obstetrics and gynecology theoretical courses (rs = 0.7–0.89), p < .05. moreover, linear regression results revealed 37.45% to coefficient determination for regular students, 38.2% to 47.3% for summer nursing students and 18.1% to 33% post-basic nursing students. To sum up, a significant positive association existed between students’ achievements in theoretical and clinical practice of obstetrics and gynecology nursing courses. Improving students’ academic performance in obstetrics and gynecology can also enhance their performance in clinical obstetrics and gynecology. However, the variance in performance in obstetrics and gynecology clinical practice was explained by academic achievement in obstetrics and gynecology theoretical courses by 22.35%.