Implications for practice and research

• Clinical nursing supervisors may be unfamiliar with the demands and challenges students encounter in the clinical environment, and the amount of encouragement and assistance they require to be successful in the nursing profession.

• Further research should focus on intervention studies examining how clinical nursing supervisors control nursing student clinical stressors to improve student outcomes.

Context

The clinical environment is the prevailing source of stress during nursing students’ educational experience. Although clinical supervisors are predominantly supportive to students in the clinical environment, current literature recognises certain clinical nursing supervisor actions and behaviours as causes of nursing student clinical stress.1 Clinical supervisors …