Why do student nurses leave? Suggestions from a Delphi Study

The high dropout rate of nursing students is a major concern. However, there is little research available about the reasons why students leave. Universities collect some information from ‘exit’ interviews but, due to ethical sensitivities, it is not made available for research analysis. The purpose of this study was to establish a consensus view of the reasons why student nurses leave their pre-registration education programme. The study was undertaken in two phases. Initially, an exploratory phase using focus groups and one-to-one interviews was used to gather multi-professional views about the reasons why students leave. In the second phase a questionnaire was developed from the themes arising from the data analysis in phase one. The questionnaire was administered to an expert panel of student nurses in the form of a three-round Delphi Study. The consensus level was set at 75%. It is important to clarify that, for reasons stated above, the views expressed in this paper are those of current students about others who had left the programme. From this study, it is apparent that, with the exception of academic failure, there was no single contributing factor that was thought to make students leave. However, there were a number of important issues identified as factors that may result in student nurses leaving. These include communication and operational factors between the university and clinical areas, feelings of not being valued, unmet expectations, and stress. These issues were of concern to students and appeared to have a cumulative effect that led them to question whether they should continue their education programme. On the basis of these findings, several recommendations are made to improve the student nurse experience.