Less is known about the leadership skills of senior charge nurses that are effective for ensuring the safety of both patients and staff in their wards 3. The primary issue remains the delivery of safe, quality, cost-effective patient care; this can only be accomplished if and when nurses, administrators, financial leaders, and politicians work together and respect one another’s points of view to resolve this complex problem 4. Senior clinical nurses play an important role in ensuring patient safety and delivering high-quality care to address these issues. In 2008, we developed the Improving Nurse Competence Program for Senior Clinical Nurses, comprising 6 months’ address, presentation and evaluation.
Objective: The aim of this study was to clarify whether the Improving Nurse Competence Program is appropriate for nursing staff.
Methods: Subjects comprised 11 senior clinical nurses (2 males, 9 females) who participated in this program. A questionnaire survey was administered before and after the program, and the senior clinical competence score was calculated using the Competence Scale for Senior Clinical Nurses (CS-SCN) 5. P-values were calculated to determine significant differences between before and after the program using the Wilcoxon test. The protocol of this study was approved by the research ethics committee of Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing. In addition, administrative approval was obtained from the subject’s hospital.
Results: P-values for total score, “Role accomplishment”, “Self-management”, “Research”, “Practice and coordination”, and “Work implementation” were 0.029, 0.025, 1.000, 0.012, 0.258 and 0.942, respectively. CS-SCN scores for total score, “Role accomplishment” and “Research” were significantly increased after completing the program. The program appeared to improve nursing competence in senior clinical nurses, and the CS-SCN measured the improvements in competence level achieved by participating in the program.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that the Improving Nurse Competence Program is useful to ensure the safety of patients and staff in the ward. This program and CS-SCN may contribute to adequate safe nurse staffing.
Acknowledgement: This study was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (KAKENHI grant No. 26463250), Japan.
Conflicts of interest: The authors declare no potential conflict of interest with respect to the research and authorship.