THE IMPACT OF CLINICAL EXPOSURE ON ATTITUDINAL DEVELOPMENT IN TRAINEES

Clinical exposure is designed to prepare young medical professionals to care for patients holistically This research is aimed at determining the attitudinal behaviour of professionals-in-training during clinical exposure. This research was done among the nursing students of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki Nigeria, to determine the attitude towards the mentally ill patients, during their clinical exposure in federal neuropsychiatric hospital Enugu. A sample size of 54 respondents were used. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. Test-retest statistics was used to establish internal consistency which gave a reliability of 0.897. Data was analyzed manually using calculator and presented in frequency, table, mean and standard deviation. The result of this research revealed that 20(37%) of the respondents agreed that they feel free and happy relating with the patients, 28 (51.9%) agreed that it wasn’t difficult for them to initiate a conversation with the patients, 27(50%) agreed that senior nurses helped them to relate well with the patients, while 26(48%) agreed that the teachings from the lecturers and senior nurses helped them to relate well with the patients. Most of the respondents, 50 (92%) of them agreed that this exposure modified their behavior positively. The Researcher therefore recommends this that this program should be a mandatory program for school of nurses both colleges and universities.