A systematic review of clinical supervision evaluation studies in nursing

Abstract

According to the international, extant literature published during the last 20 years or so, clinical supervision (CS) in nursing is now a reasonably common phenomenon. Nevertheless, what appears to be noticeably 'thin on the ground' in this body of literature are empirical evaluations of CS, especially those pertaining to client outcomes. Accordingly, the authors undertook a systematic review of empirical evaluations of CS in nursing to determine the state of the science. Adopting the approach documented by Stroup et al. (JAMA, 283, 2000, 2008), the authors searched for reports of evaluation studies of CS in nursing - published during the years 1995 to 2015. Keywords for the search were 'clinical supervision', 'evaluation', 'efficacy', 'nursing', and combinations of these keywords. Electronic databases used were CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsychLIT, and the British Nursing Index. The research evidence from twenty-eight (28) studies reviewed is presented, outlining the main findings with an overview of each study presented. The following broad themes were identified and are each discussed in the study: narrative/anecdotal accounts of positive outcomes for clinical supervision, narrative/anecdotal accounts of negative outcomes for clinical supervision, empirical positive outcomes reported by supervisee, and empirical findings showing no effect by supervisee.

What do clinical supervision research reviews tell us? Surveying the last 25 years

“…Social work, counselling, psychology, psychiatric nursing and psychiatry were all included for study. However, reviews were excluded that combined both social and medical services (Cutcliffe, Sloan, & Bashaw, 2018;Dawson, Phillips, & Leggat, 2013;Ducat & Kumar, 2015;Farnan et al, 2012), focused exclusively on medical services (Snowdon, Leggat, & Taylor, 2017), relied primarily on a noncounselling/psychotherapy database (e.g. learning disabilities; Milne & James, 2000) or were primarily scoping (e.g.…”

Recovery-Oriented Reflective Practice Groups: Conceptual Framework and Group Structure

“…Dawber (2013a) described reflective practice groups as facilitated group supervision promoting reflection focusing on the interpersonal aspects of care delivery, allowing participants to share insights relevant to nursing practice in a supportive environment. Clinical supervision lacks an agreed-upon definition (Buus, Angel, Traynor, & Gonge, 2011;Cutcliffe, Sloan, & Bashaw, 2018), and best practices for clinical supervision in the context of mental health nursing remain unclear (Buus & Gonge, 2009). Arguably, clinical supervision should be clearly separated from managerial supervision, or management agendas might threaten possibilities of reflection on care (Cutcliffe et al, 2018).…”

“…Clinical supervision lacks an agreed-upon definition (Buus, Angel, Traynor, & Gonge, 2011;Cutcliffe, Sloan, & Bashaw, 2018), and best practices for clinical supervision in the context of mental health nursing remain unclear (Buus & Gonge, 2009). Arguably, clinical supervision should be clearly separated from managerial supervision, or management agendas might threaten possibilities of reflection on care (Cutcliffe et al, 2018). Peer group supervision has been suggested as an alternate form of supervision (Heron, 1999) and proposed as an accessible alternative to traditional clinical supervision in mental health nursing (Lakeman & Glasgow, 2009).…”

“…Peer group supervision has been suggested as an alternate form of supervision (Heron, 1999) and proposed as an accessible alternative to traditional clinical supervision in mental health nursing (Lakeman & Glasgow, 2009). A recent systematic review of clinical supervision evaluation studies in nursing (Cutcliffe et al, 2018) reported a small but emerging body of empirical work reporting positive effects of clinical supervision and a need for more quantitative or mixed-methods research. The review also highlighted the necessity of further qualitative evaluations of the effects and impacts of clinical supervision, although the existing literature reports "overwhelmingly positive" findings (Cutcliffe et al, 2018(Cutcliffe et al, , p. 1360).…”

Regular clinical supervision to enhance wellbeing in inflammatory bowel disease specialist nurses: a small pilot study

“…Over twenty years ago, the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC: now Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) stated that 'every practitioner should have access to clinical supervision' (Cowe and Wilkes 1998). There is evidence of access to and benefits of clinical supervision amongst nurses in a range of clinical settings (Cutcliffe et al 2018), but to our knowledge, clinical supervision may rarely be provided routinely to IBD-CNSs in the UK. As the first stage of a long-term plan to initiate routine clinical supervision for all IBD-CNSs across the UK, the authors conducted a small-scale pilot study to test the feasibility and acceptability of cognitive behavioural therapy-based clinical supervision amongst the IBD-CNS team at one central London hospital.…”