Perceived Influence of Internship Experience on Critical Thinking, Caring Attitude and Professional Commitment among Nursing Students: a Descriptive Study

Background: Clinical internship provides nursing students with opportunities to integrate theoretical knowledge with clinical practice and assume professional responsibilities. Understanding students’ perceptions of its influence on critical thinking, caring attitude, and professional commitment is important for nursing education. Objective: To assess nursing students’ perceptions of how internship experiences influence critical thinking, caring attitude, and professional commitment, and to examine associations between selected demographic variables and these perceptions. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 131 nursing students who had completed internship in selected nursing colleges in Kerala, India. Convenience sampling was used. Data were collected using a researcher-developed 30-item questionnaire comprising 10 items for each domain, rated on a five-point Likert scale. Negatively worded items were reverse-scored. Data were analysed using Jamovi. Domain scores were summarized using medians and quartiles. Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests were used for group comparisons, and Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used as an exploratory analysis. Results: Good levels were reported for critical thinking by 55.0% of participants, caring attitude by 56.5%, and professional commitment by 61.1%. No statistically significant differences were detected by sex or type of internship hospital for the three domains. Positive correlations were observed between critical thinking and caring attitude (rₛ=0.442, p<0.001), critical thinking and professional commitment (rₛ=0.397, p<0.001), and caring attitude and professional commitment (rₛ=0.726, p<0.001). Conclusion: Nursing students reported generally favourable perceived levels across the three domains following internship. The positive relationships suggest that these dimensions of professional development are interrelated. Because the study was cross-sectional and assessed students only after internship, it cannot establish actual change or causality. Longitudinal studies with pre- and post-internship assessment are recommended