It is important to prepare the nursing students to be confident and able to interact with the patients,
colleagues, doctors and other staff because the nature of nursing work included a high degree of personal
and group interaction. Continuous communication and interaction in nursing work are some of the
important factors for self-esteem among nurses. Self-esteem affects the relationship between job roles and
job satisfaction as well as the link between work performance and work roles conflict. The objective of this
study is to examine the effects of low self-esteem on clinical performance among first year nursing students
at private nursing college in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted among
10 first year nursing students in one of the private nursing college. Data was collected through one to one
interviews using semi-structured questions. The interview question was structured based on observation
and literature review. The design is ideal because it facilitate the collection of data from a small number of
participants through personal interview. The collected data was transcribed into verbatim and analysed by
identifying the themes via coding and categorization. The results showed there are two main themes
emerged from the study: Defensive behavior and poor communication as the effects of low self-esteem on
the students’ clinical performance. As conclusion from this study, defensive behavior and poor
communication and are the obvious effects of low self-esteem among the first year nursing students in a
private nursing college. This study revealed the needs to equip the students with more conducive learning
environment facilitate suitable motivational and mentoring approaches and practice good communication
skills. Future research suggested, extends the study to the public nursing college for outcomes comparison
and evaluation.