Do student nurses experience Imposter Phenomenon? An international comparison of Final Year Undergraduate Nursing Students readiness for registration

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1NURSING
Introduction:
The article titled ‘Do student nurses experience Imposter Phenomenon? An international
comparison of Final Year Undergraduate Nursing Students readiness for registration’ written by
Christensen et al. (2016) has been published in the Journal of Advanced nursing. The study
aimed to evaluate the level of imposter phenomenon (IP) in four final year nursing student
sample group in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. According to Chernomas and Shapiro
(2013), IP involves the phenomenon associated with feelings of self-doubt in one’s ability and
this is a common phenomenon for many final year nurse because of feelings of stress and.
depression while preparing to enter the real world professional nursing practice. By using survey
design, the main outcome of this research was that each cohort group was found to experience
mild to moderate feelings of imposter phenomenon and feeling of imposterism was higher for the
New Zealand cohort compared to other two cohorts. This finding gives the implication that
nursing students internalize feelings of imposterism. Hence, there is a need to conduct future
research to understand whether self reporter preparedness can change experiences or not. The
article of great merit and utility for nursing education and research as it will help in identifying
the level of curriculum change needed for nurse to address feelings of IP and incorporating
issues of internal conflict and external hostility while preparing educational programmes for
nursing students. The thesis statement is that the article by Christensen et al. (2016) is high
quality research evidence to understand experience of IP among nurses and improve nurse’s
transition from student to registered nurse.

2NURSING
Summary:
By using the Clance Imposter Phenomena Scale (CIPS) and the Preparedness for Hospital
Placement Questionnaire for Nursing (PHPQN), Christensen et al. (2016) investigated about the
prevalence of IP in final year nursing students and that impact of clinical practice preparation on
symptom of IP. By completing the survey with 223 final year nursing student, the study revealed
that 45.1% of the sample has moderate experience of IP and 33.4% participants had frequent
experience of OP. Furthermore, by using statistical analysis method using Pearson’s correlation,
the study revealed that relation between imposter phenomenon and preparedness of for practice
too. The author also discussed about the consistency of the finding by supporting it with other
research evidence. The evidence regarding the relation between readiness for practice and
feelings of imposterism indicate gap in nursing curriculum across different countries. Australian
Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (2012) revealed that 800 hours of clinical
placement is complete by each nursing students in Australia and the nursing students in New
Zealand take 2300 hour of clinical placement during their nursing course. However, these data
suggest that number of hours in clinical placement does not predict clinical preparedness. Hence,
the study concluded that content of respective curriculum of each country might be the reason
behind different level of clinical preparedness of student nurse.
Evaluation:
The article by Christensen et al. (2016) has many strength and weakness and these will be
discussed in more detail in this section. The strength of this research design is that it has taken a
heterogeneous sample group for evaluation of IP experiences in nurse by taking sample from
Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The significance of taking a heterogeneous sample is that it