Perceived anxiety and self-confidence among undergraduate nursing students during clinical practice in selected colleges providing nursing studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2023: prospective observational multicenter cross-sectional study

Background:Two emotional factors that have an impact on how nursing students learn and use clinical decision-making (CDM) are self-confidence and anxiety. These two emotional factors affect their education and clinical practice and may cause them to drop out of the nursing program. Since students' CDM skills grow with clinical experience at each stage of education, it has been stressed in recent years that various educational approaches should be employed to enhance CDM by reducing anxiety and increasing self-confidence.Objective:To assess anxiety and self-confidence among undergraduate nursing students during clinical practice in selected colleges providing nursing studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2023.Methods:An institutional-based, multicentered, cross-sectional study design was employed to assess anxiety and self-confidence among undergraduate nursing students during clinical practice. A total of 293 students were enrolled. Six nursing colleges were selected by simple sampling technique, two from the government and four from privately owned colleges. The third- and fourth-year students were included from the six colleges proportionally. The students were chosen by a systematic random sampling method from each college proportionally. Data were collected using a self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire through the Nursing Anxiety and Self-confidence with Clinical Decision-Making Scale. It was entered into Epidata 4.6 and then exported to SPSS version 26.0 for final analysis. Bivariate analysis at a P value of 0.25 and multivariable analysis at a P value of 0.05 were applied.Result:A total of 275 students participated in this study. The proportion of perceived good self-confidence of nursing students during clinical practice was 49.1%, and for perceived anxiety, it was 46.9%. The sex of the students, their perception that clinical instructors were prepared well during clinical attachments, their belief that a shortage of staff in the hospital affected clinical learning, and the perceived self-confidence of nursing students were significant predictors of the perceived anxiety of the students.Conclusion and recommendation:The students who had poor perceived self-confidence were five times more likely to be more anxious than those having good perceived self-confidence. This research strongly recommends that students should be motivated and evaluated regularly for anxiety and self-confidence during clinical practice and provide a pleasant clinical experience.