Nursing students are the future of the nursing workforce, so the quality of nursing education is the focus of educators and researchers around the world. Nursing education aims to educate nursing students with professional knowledge, skills, and abilities, which are the foundation for providing quality nursing care (Immonen et al., 2019). As for students in a four-year baccalaureate nursing program in China, they usually have three years of theoretical education and one year of clinical education (Yu et al., 2021). In the final year of their internship, they learn to transfer classroom knowledge to clinical practice. However, this process of transition from theory to practice is not easy in four-year nursing baccalaureate programs and other undergraduate nursing programs around the world (Carless-Kane & Nowell, 2023). As nursing students face various learning challenges in the clinical environment, nursing faculty members are dedicated to designing various educational activities and exploring innovative teaching methods to prepare nursing students for practice (Ironside et al., 2014; O'Connor & Andrews, 2015).

Digital technology is the application of electronic systems, tools, and devices to generate, process, store, and retrieve data through technology (Bhatia, 2021). The application of digital technology has a great impact on every part of society, especially in the field of education (Meum et al., 2021). With the features of interactivity, flexibility, and enriched information (Kalolo, 2019), digital technology is widely used in health professional education (O'Doherty et al., 2018). Digital education is defined as the teaching and learning process through digital technology, which includes mobile learning, distance learning, virtual reality (VR), and game-based learning (Car et al., 2019). Students can access flexible, accessible, and affordable learning environments through digital education (Tudor Car et al., 2019).

As for clinical education among nursing students, the benefits of digital technology are well documented in the literature. For example, VR can facilitate the application of nursing knowledge and skills through learning in three-dimensional (3D) environment, which can be used to supplement conventional teaching (Woon et al., 2021). With the increasing application of digital technology in nursing clinical education, several qualitative studies were conducted to explore the experiences of undergraduate nursing students who participated in digital education (Kim et al., 2021; Nikpeyma et al., 2021; Willemse et al., 2019). Although these studies highlighted the importance of digital education in clinical practice, the facilitators and barriers to its application still need to be systematically understood. In order to facilitate a deeper understanding of digital education and promote the better application of digital technology in clinical education among undergraduate nursing programs, this systematic qualitative review was conducted to synthesize current qualitative research findings from the perspective of nursing students.