Participatory learning to enhance leadership competence in nursing students: a feasibility study

Abstract

Background: Clinical leadership is an important skill for nurses to acquire. This process should begin during undergraduate nurse training. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the intervention of enhancing the self-perceived leadership competence of nursing students by incorporating a series of participatory learning activities is implementable into a nursing degree programme. Methodology: Feasibility study, with undergraduate nurse training programme in two Spanish universities, were conducted between autumn 2015 and July 2021 in three phases: design, acceptability and implementation, and expansion. Pre-post intervention study with control groups to examine change in self-perceived leadership skills and satisfaction in both the implementation and expansion phases. The two intervention groups (implementation and expansion phases, respectively) comprised nursing students from two consecutive cohorts at our university (n = 136). The two control groups (n = 132) were also students from two consecutive cohorts, one enrolled in our university, the other from the nursing degree programme offered by another university. Data were analyzed using: chi-square test for comparisons of dichotomous qualitative variables; Student's t test for unpaired data or the Mann-Whitney U test (depending on the normality); The general linear model with calculation of p values for within- and between-groups differences, with post-hoc Bonferroni correction, to evaluate the effect of the intervention. Results: In general, the results suggest the feasibility of the intervention due to the participatory learning activities were well-received by both students and academic tutors (satisfaction ratings above 80%), and importantly, they enhanced the self-perceived leadership skills of students who received the intervention (increase of 18% compared with 11% and 7% in the two control groups). Conclusions: The results support the feasibility of enhancing the self-perceived leadership competence of nursing students through participatory learning initiatives of this kind, but do not establish the effectiveness of the intervention, because further studies are required to corroborate these findings both within similar contexts and across diverse educational and cultural settings. Incorporating leadership training into nursing degree programmes could help to provide the foundational skills that students will need if they are to show clinical leadership in their professional careers. This is important as clinical leadership by nurses can have a positive impact on patient care and is also associated with greater professional satisfaction and resilience to workplace pressures.