Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinical education is a key component of the nursing curriculum. Therefore, it is necessary to use new methods to learn basic clinical skills better. This study examines the effect of an early exposure educational program on first-year nursing students' communication, history-taking, and nursing diagnostic skills. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a census method, this brief report included all first-year students of the Dezful University of Medical Sciences in two academic semesters in 2023. An early exposure program was implemented for one group of students. In the second semester, both groups' communication skills, history-taking, and nursing diagnoses were measured in the clinical environment using a checklist. Pearson's and Spearman's correlation coefficients were used in this study. Data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS version 16 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) with a 95% determination level. RESULTS: Communication skills (35.6 ± 4.87, 23.73 ± 2.28), patient history-taking (14.03 ± 1.158, 8.47 ± 1.59), and nursing diagnosis (8.03 ± 1.31, 3.26 ± 1.86) were significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group. In the intervention group, there was a significant and positive correlation between communication and nursing diagnosis (r = 0.366), communication and history-taking (r = 0.433), and history-taking with nursing diagnosis (r = 0.523). CONCLUSIONS: Based on the positive results of this study, nursing managers should provide the possibility of implementing methods, such as early exposure, by creating a suitable platform.