Abstract: Objective: To understand the patients' perception and experience of participating in clinical nursing education, and to provide reference and basis from patients' perspective in the clinical nursing teaching. Methods: The phenomenological research method was adopted, and 16 inpatients were selected by purpose sampling for semi-structured interviews. The data was analyzed using Colaizzi's seven-step method. Results: Five themes of role perception were extracted, including teacher's teaching material, students' clinical practice platform, students' performance evaluator, students' professional skills promoter, and students' clinical learning educator. Five themes of participating experiences were extracted, namely love and care from nursing students, dedication and self-worth realization, lack of publicity related to clinical nursing education in hospital, desire for respect, and the need for a positive and supportive nursing environment. Conclusion: Patients' role perception showed that the role and significance of patients' participation in clinical education hadn't been fully developed. The participation experience also reflected related problems in clinical nursing education. It is recommended that medical staff and relevant educators pay more attention to patients' role of education, and further improve the clinical nursing education system.

Key words: patient participation; clinical nursing education; nursing students; role; experience; qualitative research