Nursing students' perceptions of unfinished nursing care: A cross-sectional study

Aim: To investigate the prevalence, patterns and reasons for unfinished nursing care as perceived by nursing students. Background: Unfinished nursing care (UNC) is a frequently observed phenomenon in the acute care setting. To date, studies have focused primarily on the perspective of nurses or patients, but another important perspective is that of nursing students who provide nursing care in all healthcare settings. Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Methods: The study included 738 undergraduate nursing students from nine Slovak universities. Data were collected between September 2022 and February 2023 using the Slovak version of the Unfinished Nursing Care Survey tool (UNCS). Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The mean composite score of UNCS was 2.48 (SD =0.68). In general, 100% of nursing students reported that nurses missed at least one or more nursing care activities during their last clinical placement. The average number of missed nursing care activities was 11.2 per nurse as perceived by nursing students during their last clinical placement. Nursing students reported that the most frequently omitted nursing care activity was spending time with patients and their caregivers (3.15 +/- 1.11; 92.9%). The most frequently reported reason for UNC was an inadequate number of nurses on the ward (4.31 +/- 1.01; 98.1%). In the study, reported UNC could be predicted by previous experience in healthcare, previous clinical rotation, number of patients per shift, perceived staff adequacy and outcome expectations (p <0.05). Conclusions: The findings reveal that UNC is a widespread phenomenon and all nursing students report this phenomenon during their clinical placements. Spending time with patients and their caregivers emerged as the most frequently omitted nursing care activity, highlighting the importance of patient -centered care. The primary reason cited for UNC was an inadequate number of nurses, highlighting staffing issues as a significant contributing factor. These findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to address staff shortages and improve nursing education to prepare students to address UNC in their future practice.