This two-phase, qualitative research study explores the empowerment of nursing students in clinical practice. The first phase utilises the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and the second is underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology. Although there is a great deal of literature in nursing regarding power and empowerment, most of it focuses on the empowerment of patients and registered nurses, rather than nursing students. Moreover, there are no studies that explore empowerment of nursing students from a phenomenological perspective and similarly, there are no studies that have used CIT to explore empowerment of nursing students in clinical practice. Thus, the aim of the study is to address these omissions and make a contribution to nursing knowledge.
The aim of Phase One of the research was to illuminate the empowering and
disempowering critical incidents experienced by nursing students in clinical practice and to capture their experiences at different stages of the curriculum. To achieve this, a CIT study was designed that utilised an anonymous, written form of CIT with 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year nursing students from the UK. From the findings, a model of nursing student empowerment was proposed. This phase of the research also comprised of a cross-cultural CIT study that compared and contrasted the empowerment of nursing students in the UK and Japan. Despite very different contexts, the study found striking similarities in the experiences of empowerment among students from the two countries.
The Phase One CIT studies provided the springboard for inquiry in the second phase of the research. This study which was underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology, aimed to illuminate the essential themes of nursing student empowerment. Thirteen, first-year nursing students were recruited to a longitudinal study and annual, semi-structured interviews captured their trajectory from 1^st to 3^rd year of the programme. Focus group interviews with a cross-sectional sample of students were then used to clarify and check
emerging themes. The essential themes were highlighted as 'knowledge' and
'confidence' . The study culminated with the development of a visual representation to capture the complexity of the phenomenon which shows the multiplicity of influences on students' empowerment. From this, a number of recommendations are made that might serve to promote the empowerment of nursing students in clinical practice.