# Operating Theatre Nurse Students' Experiences of the Perioperative Dialogue in Clinical Practice: A Hermeneutical Study

## TL;DR

This study explores how operating theatre nurse students experience using perioperative dialogues with patients to improve care and build meaningful relationships.

## Contribution

The study introduces the perioperative dialogue as a unique caring process that enhances patient-centered care and student reflection.

## Key findings

- The perioperative dialogue is seen as a unique caring process that creates continuity and a coherent whole in patient care.
- Continuity in dialogue fosters a mutual community between students and patients through a care relationship.
- Perioperative dialogues allow patients to participate in their care and ensure dignified, high-quality nursing.

## Abstract

In perioperative care, patient encounters are limited and care planning is not always based on the patient's needs and wishes. Operating theatre nurse students were given the opportunity to use the perioperative dialogue in patient care together with their supervisor. It is of interest what students experience using the perioperative dialogue in clinical practice.

This study aims to describe the operating theatre nurse students' experiences and reflections of the perioperative dialogues with patients in clinical practice.

A qualitative approach was chosen and has a hermeneutical design. During clinical practice, the operating theatre nurse students carried out the perioperative dialogues with patients, together with an operating theatre nurse supervisor. Data were text from 116 student examination tasks in a perioperative nursing universal course. This text was interpretive with hermeneutical text interpretation with five steps.

The result showed that the perioperative dialogue is understood as a unique caring process and continuity in the perioperative dialogue created a coherent whole. It offered the opportunity to meet the patient as a unique person, to gain knowledge about them and carry out their perioperative care. Continuity created a mutual community through the care relationship between the patient and operating theatre nurse students. Through the perioperative dialogues, the patient became participated in perioperative nursing care.

The perioperative dialogue serves the patient's desire for dignified care and thereby ensures the provision of higher quality care. It also offers the operating theatre nurse students a new way of caring and arouses reflections about their main task of caring for the suffering patient. The perioperative dialogue with patients offers the possibility to ensure good and safe perioperative care.