Relationship Between Professional Identity Development and Clinical Learning Environment: Nursing Students’ Perspective

Background: The development of a professional identity is a core foundation of the nursing profession, because itpromotes students in developing an awareness of their profession. Development of a professional identity alongsidewith clinical learning environment. The clinical learning environment is the most important factor which has thegreatest impact on nursing students' professional identities. Aim: To explore the relationship between professionalidentity development and clinical learning environment from nursing students’ perspective. Research design: Adescriptive correlational exploratory research design was used. Setting: This study was conducted at the Faculty ofNursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. Subjects: The subjects of this study comprised of all nursing students enrolledin the seventh academic semester (N=791) during the first academic term of the academic year 2023-2024. Tools:Professional Identity Scale for Nursing Students (PISN) and Abbreviated Clinical Learning Environment Inventory-19(The abbreviated CLEI-19) were used to collect data. Findings: More than half of the students (50.4%) had a highlevel of professional identity, the majority of nursing students (76.6%) had a positive perspective regarding theirclinical learning environment. Moreover, there was a statistically significance positive correlation between students’professional identity development and their clinical learning environment (r = 0.398*, p <0.001*). Conclusion: Thestudents’ overall professional identity is positively correlated with their overall clinical learning environment.Moreover, findings confirmed that a positive clinical learning environment played a crucial role in developingstudents' professional identity. Recommendations: Educational workshops should be conducted for nurse educators toincrease their awareness about the concept of professional identity and how to develop it for nursing students.Clinical facilitators and nurses in clinical unit should be cooperated to construct a comprehensive, positive, andeffective environment for clinical learning to students to improve their professional identity