Available online 13 May 2024, 103955

Author links open overlay panel, , , , AbstractAims

To determine the level of critical thinking of undergraduate nursing students during their clinical practice, as well as to identify the relationship between sociodemographic and academic variables.

Background

Nursing degree programs should prioritize the development of critical thinking skills in their curriculum and regularly assess students to ensure the acquisition of core competencies.

Design

Multicenter, descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational, descriptive study. Participants included were students from the Degree in Nursing enrolled during the academic year 2020-2021. Students were selected by convenience from three universities located in Catalonia, Spain. Data were collected from 429 students, with 98 being excluded due to incomplete data.

Methods

Data were collected by administering the Nursing Critical Thinking in Students Questionnaire and an ad hoc form of sociodemographic and academic characteristics. The STROBE guidelines checklist were followed. The study involves a secondary analysis of data from a previous study that presented psychometric analysis.

Results

No significant differences were observed in total Critical Thinking scores across various parameters including academic year, current situation, work experience in healthcare, previous academic training, family situation, or recent stressful events. On average, students demonstrated moderate critical thinking scores. However, statistically significant relationships emerged between critical thinking scores and gender (p=0.046), institution attended for undergraduate studies (p=0.019) and having satisfactory social relationships despite experiencing stressful events (p=0.330).

Conclusions

The study delves into the correlation between critical thinking skills and sociodemographic and academic factors, identifying students who may benefit from specific interventions and advocating for adaptable educational methods. It emphasizes the pivotal role of trust in fostering critical thinking in nursing education and suggests a connection between critical thinking and strong social relationships. In conclusion, evaluating critical thinking is crucial for addressing healthcare challenges, validating teaching strategies and promoting continuous improvement in nursing education.

Section snippetsBackground

Critical thinking is closely related to nursing competence and patient outcomes (Tong et al.; 2023). It encompasses higher-order cognitive skills like analysis, inference and evaluation, supported by ongoing motivation (Dwyer et al., 2017). This importance is emphasized in nursing, sparking interest in studying its dimensions and fostering training strategies for students and professionals (Zuriguel-Pérez et al., 2019). Developing critical thinking equips graduates to excel academically (Ren et

Design

Multicenter, cross-sectional, correlational study using the N-CT-4 Students. The participants included were the students of the Nursing Degree belonging to the four courses of Nursing Degree, enrolled during the academic year 2020-2021. Purposive sampling was carried out.

Participants and sampling

Convenience sampling was employed to select participants from three Catalonia-based universities (University I, II and III) as part of the study. Notably, these universities uniformly allocated 84 credits for clinical practice.

Characteristics of the study sample

A total of 429 students participated in the study, of whom 145 (33.7%) answered the online questionnaire and 284 (66.3%) answered the paper version. During data processing, 98 participants did not submit complete responses to all items of the questionnaire, so they were not included in the final sample, leaving 331 participants. The sociodemographic characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1

Levels of critical thinking in nursing student’s practice

The overall score ratio of the study population revealed a moderate level of critical thinking

Discussion

The study delves into the critical thinking prowess of nursing students, revealing a moderate level of proficiency. This discovery aligns with analogous research using the same assessment tool in the professional nursing domain (Van Nguyen and Liu, 2021, Oliveira et al., 2021, Zuriguel-Pérez et al., 2019). The data suggests that there's a consistency in the level of critical thinking across both academic and professional spheres.

Authors such as Barry et al. (2020), who employed the Ricketts'

Conclusions

In summary, the N-CT-4 questionnaire emerges as a tool for evaluating the critical thinking of nursing students in clinical settings, offering valuable insights into the correlation between critical thinking skills and various sociodemographic and academic factors. The study underscores the importance of identifying students with lower proficiency, paving the way for targeted educational interventions. The sensitivity of critical thinking skills to socio-demographic and academic variables, such

Funding resources

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Patient or Public Contribution

No Patient or Public Contribution

Uncited references

(Cevik, 2019, Fero et al., 2009, Liu et al., 2019, Tiwari et al., 2006, Yildirim et al., 2012)

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Ainoa Biurrun-Garrido: Writing – review & editing, Investigation. Esperanza Zuriguel-Pérez: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Supervision, Project administration, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation. Luis Basco-Prado: Writing – review & editing, Investigation. Olga Mestres-Soler: Writing – original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Juan Roldán-Merino: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Conflict of interest

The authors confirm that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the nursing students who participated in the study.

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