OPTIMIZING CLINICAL SUPERVISION TO ENHANCE NURSING STUDENTS’ COMPETENCE: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Clinical supervision is a crucial element in nursing education, serving as a bridge between theoretical learning and clinical practice, aiming to ensure students are able to provide safe nursing care while developing clinical skills and professionalism. The implementation of clinical supervision in various nursing educational institutions still faces challenges, such as limited supervisors, varying quality of clinical instructors, and weak coordination with network hospitals. This study aims to analyze and synthesize the latest scientific evidence regarding clinical supervision strategies and their impact on improving nursing student competency, with an emphasis on optimizing clinical supervision in nursing education. This research method is a literature review of various scientific sources, in the form of articles taken from Google Scholar, CINAHL, PubMed, and ScienceDirect, a total of twelve articles published in the last five years, namely 2019 to 2025 from leading international journals and accredited national journals selected following PRISMA guidelines. Then, narrative analysis was conducted for inclusion in the articles. This study revealed that structured, competency-based clinical supervision significantly improves clinical skills, critical thinking, effective communication, and professionalism of nursing students. Optimizing clinical supervision is supported by supervisor competence, the role of clinical instructors, a conducive clinical learning environment, and strong collaboration between educational institutions and practice settings. This study concludes that optimizing clinical supervision is a key strategy in improving nursing students' competency and readiness for professional practice.

Keywords: Clinical Supervision, Nursing Education, Nursing Student Competencies