Strategies to stimulate critical thinking among nursing students for academic success and safe clinical practice beyond COVID-19 pandemic: An integrative literature review

Abstract

Background: The precipitous changes in healthcare services and in nursing education, brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and  globalisation, necessitate that nursing students are trained to deliver competent and safe nursing care amid the changes and demands  within the evolving nursing education and clinical settings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the has been less exposure to workplace- integrated learning in clinical facilities where nursing students learn new skills related to the curriculum, this deprives the nursing  students of being socialised to various medical conditions and situations that enhance how they perform clinical decisions as nurses.  Furthermore, teaching and learning have moved from traditional face-to-face teaching to either hybrid or fully online to safeguard  nursing students from attracting the virus. These changes in teaching and learning aggravated anxiety and academic workload which  greatly influence how nursing students perform academically. Thus, opportunities and an environment where critical thinking is nurtured  are negatively impacted. Critical thinking improves clinical reasoning and better decision-making, which influence positive  clinical outcomes. The aim of the study was to explore and describe strategies that stimulate critical thinking among nursing students for  academic success and safe clinical practice beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology: An integrative literature review, adapted the  Whittemore and Knalf approach, conducted the study using the PICO method on three selected databases, namely EBSCOhost, MEDLINE,  and Google Scholar. There were seven articles analysed published between 2019 and 2022. The search terms used to search  for literature were “critical thinking,” “nursing students,” “academic success,” safe clinical practice” and “COVID-19 pandemic.” 2004  articles were retrieved from the selected databases after relevant screening and selection only 15 articles were included that meet the  inclusion criteria. Findings: Four main themes emerged, namely relevant learning and teaching context, active involvement of the nursing  student in the teaching and learning process, effective role of nursing educator, and innovative teaching methods. The  conclusion and recommendations were to stimulate critical thinking in nursing students requires a systematic approach from the  conception of curriculum to the people who facilitate teaching and learning and the nursing students themselves. Other researchers can  use the findings of this study to conduct studies related to critical thinking for nursing students in teaching and learning within the  classroom and clinical facilities. This can inform the curriculum developers and all the relevant stakeholders involved in the teaching of  nursing students, as such, recommendations are currently lacking.