Physiotherapy students’ experiences from clinical education processes: a qualitative study

Abstract Introduction: today the position of clinical education in training of physiotherapy students is becoming more prominent. Proper planning for students’ clinical training requires accurate understanding about students’ experiences. The aim of this study was obtaining a better understanding about physiotherapy students’ experiences of the ongoing processes in clinical education. Method: twenty-one final year physiotherapy students in bachelor level selected by purposeful sampling and invited to this qualitative study. Data collected through five Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and Colaizzi analyzing method was used in analysis of data. Validity of the findings based on data triangulation method. Results: after data analysis and classification of Codes, four themes emerged: “clinical education and evaluation”,” clinical learning”,” patient admission”,” student relationships in environment”. In this study, participants emphasized on some issues such as, patient shortage in number and diversity, non-Implementation of clerkship education headlines and large population groups. Conclusion: lack of attention to current processes in clinical education influences the students’ clinical experiences. Therefore, improvement of clerkship processes providing the more effective clinical experience. Providing adequate patients diversity in clinical education sites, increase the practical and clinical courses, greater and more practical emphasis on better implementation of clinical education headlines and balancing of clinical groups’ size may be helpful in order to enhance the clinical experience richness for students. Keywords: Clinical Education, Physiotherapy Students, Clinical Education Processes, Lived Experience