In Portugal, the nursing clinical training, as sustained by a regulating ordinance from the Nursing Graduation Course (Ordinance nº 799-D/99), is a fundamental side in the teaching/learning process, which aims to hand the students essential scientific and technical skills for their professional development.

At an European level, clinical training is defined by the Directive 2005/36/CE, from September the 7^th 2005, as “that part of nurse training in which trainee nurses learn, as part of a team and in direct contact with a healthy or sick individual and/or community, to organise, dispense and evaluate the required comprehensive nursing care, on the basis of the knowledge and skills which they have acquired.(…) This training shall take place in hospitals and other health institutions and in the community, under the responsibility of nursing teachers, in cooperation with and assisted by other qualified nurses.”

The Portuguese legislation expects the collaboration between health institutions and nurses in the nursing education, according to the Ministerial Dispatch nº 1/87 from April 21^st 1987, reinforced by the Dispatch nº 8/90 from February 28^th 1990, which determines that “… the Health Ministry dependent establishments and services ought to collaborate with the Nursing Schools by: Providing traineeship places of nature and quality adequate to the education of new nurses; Allowing the collaboration of their nursing staff in the practical learning of the students, according to the adjusted guidelines between schools and services…” (DR nº 64 from 17/03/90:2706).

This way, the partnerships between Nursing Schools and Health Institutions are of great importance, thus only so does the student acquire competences for the nursing practice, with the inherent costs associated to the education.

We agree with Serralva (2000), when he claims that the health expenses increase is one of the largest current problems when associated to the populations increase of average life expectancy and to a larger level of care claimed by the individuals next to health institutions, but we wonder if the professionals education also contributes to that same increase, as have been questioned by health organizations. It is this way important to quantify this formation’s costs.

To an organized management of hospital costs, nurses should follow a guideline that allows them to, within their global competences, a conduct of positive relation between supplies consumption and health care provided.

Without studies that relate the presence of students in Clinical training with the clinical supplies consumption, we consider their realization relevant, not only by the knowledge benefits acquired, but also to a better and more rational management of those resources and of care. In this problematic we question:

-          In what way does the presence of students in clinical training influence the consumption of material in nursing clinical techniques, within the services of Medicine and Surgery of a hospital unit?

ALARCAO, Isabel; RUA, Marília (2005) – Interdisciplinaridade, estágios clínicos e desenvolvimento de competências [Em linha]. In: Texto Contexto Enfermagem [Consult. 1st September 2009]. Available in: WWW: