An Educational Programme To Facilitate Reflective Practice For Registered Nurses In Training Hospitals In Windhoek

ABSTRACT 

Illness is an evitable part of life for the vast majority of people. The nurses’ reactions to people who are ill or who are in need of health care are influenced and shaped by their own personal qualities, such as sensitivity, understanding and honesty as well as the professional attributes, skills, competencies, attitudes and cognitive abilities necessary for effective practice.   Problems or incidents occurring in clinical settings are often seen as indicators of poor nursing care and even indicators of a lack of reflective practice skills. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe how reflection is practised by registered nurses. The objectives of the study were to explore and describe how reflection is practiced and conceptualised by registered nurses in Namibia.   A qualitative, explorative, phenomenological, descriptive and contextual approach was used. Data were collected from the population, including all registered nurses purposively selected from different disciplines in training hospitals, through in-depth interviews. The data were analysed according to themes based on the ideas of Tesch’s model, and revealed inadequate knowledge of reflective practice among registered nurses as they only expressed the execution of their daily activities without paying attention to how they reflect in daily practice.   Hence the reflective practice programme was developed and implemented to offer knowledge and skills to effectively address the clinical challenges which registered nurses may encounter in terms of reflection. The evaluation of the programme was conducted sixteen weeks (4 months) after the programme implementation, with the overall results showing that reflective practice would assist registered nurses to think critically and to engage in reflection upon professional practice activities that would lead to the improvement of their performances. The main recommendations made were among others, that nursing education in Namibia must make reflective practice a compulsory competency of registered nurses and all health care providers, and should be included in the curriculum of all student nurses.