Background: Student absenteeism refers to the frequent absence from classes without any good reason and thought to be the primary concern in health profession education worldwide mainly in medical school and this impedes the development and achievement of academic goals Absenteeism in the assigned clinical areas reduce students’ exposure time and their level of competency due to that it hinders the production of competent nursing graduates. Based on this studies the purpose was to assess factors contributing to absenteeism during clinical practice to Bachelor of Science in nursing students at Catholic University of Health and Allied Science. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to assess clinical, demographic and personal factors contributing to absenteeism during clinical practice to Bachelor of Science in nursing student at CUHAS
Materials and Methods: A quantitative research-based cross section study design was used. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 23.0. One hundred and seventy-eight student nurses were sampled after permission to conduct the study was requested and obtained
Results: The results showed that 50.0% of respondents agreed that the shortage of staff or clinical instructor lead to student absenteeism in the clinical area ,50.0% of respondents agreed that the work overload in the clinical area lead to student absenteeism, 46.6% agreed that the violence toward the student lead to student absenteeism,50.6% of respondents agreed that students may be absent because they do not want to be treated as workforce in the clinical area, 48.3%of respondents agreed that the male students more frequent absent than female in the clinical area,52.2%of respondents agreed that the younger students are more frequent absent than older students in the clinical area ,49.4% of respondents agreed that the married students are more absent than unmarried students ,48.3% of respondents agreed that the family challenges like looking after a sick relative and funeral lead to student absenteeism in the clinical area,50.0% agreed that the physical problem like illness tiredness lead to student absenteeism .
Conclusion: Student nurses at a selected campus are generally absent at the clinical areas because they are physically ill and are funded for studying but not paid for working. It was recommended that accurate records of attendance should be kept and absenteeism rates be calculated at frequent intervals