Nurse leaders are responsible for employing competent nurses to ensure quality care and professional standards. The need to ascertain that new graduates meet the competencies required in current health care environment has been emphasized (Hickerson, Taylor, & Terhaar, 2016; Oermann, Poole-Dawkins, Alcarez, Foster, & O’Sullivan, 2010; Utley-Smith, 2004), especially because a larger proportion of higher educated nurses are associated with better patient outcomes (Aiken et al., 2017). In the future, due to the nurse shortages, the proportion of newly graduated nurses in the workforce will increase (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2017; U.S. Department of Labor, 2019), and the evaluation of competence is warranted.
The purpose of this presentation is to analyze nurse leaders’ evaluations of the professional competence of graduating nurse students in six European countries (Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, and Spain). This presentation is based on a larger European research project entitled Professional Competence in Nursing (PROCOMPNurse).
Methods:
Cross-sectional survey data were collected between 5/2018‒3/2019 in participating countries, mainly in university hospitals. Inclusion criteria for nurse leaders included the following: has a nursing background, has an official administrative position, has almost daily connections with staff, is involved in recruitment, and has a position in the organization providing clinical placements for graduating nurse students.
A paper-based survey was used, except for Ireland, where both paper-based and electronic (Research Electronic Data Capture REDCap developed by Vanderbilt University) surveys were used. This presentation provides demographic and organizational items, results of the Nurse Competence Scale (NCS; Meretoja, Isoaho, & Leino-Kilpi, 2004), and medication management. NCS (73 items) is an internationally used instrument for assessing nurses’ generic competence (Flinkman et al., 2017), is based on Benner’s From Novice to Expert framework, and has seven theoretical categories (helping role; teaching/coaching; diagnostic functions; managing situations; therapeutic interventions; ensuring quality; and work role). The level of competence is measured with a visual analogue scale (0–100; ≤25 low competence; >25–50 quite good competence; >50–75 good competence; >75–100 very good competence). Data analysis is statistical.
Results:
The final results will be presented in the conference. Altogether, 538 European nurse leaders responded to the survey. For their average age (range 41‒51 years) and length of work experience as a nurse leader (range 6‒17 years), there were differences between and within the countries.
The competence level of graduating nurse students was ranked as quite good or good in all categories and in all countries. The work role category received the highest scores in four out of six countries, whereas the helping role category was the highest in two. For the lowest scores, there was more variation, but the teaching/coaching category received the lowest scores in three, therapeutic interventions in two, and ensuring quality in one out of six countries. For medication management, scores indicate good or very good competence in each country.
Conclusion:
Nurse leaders’ multicountry evaluation of graduating nurse students’ competence provides a positive picture for the future. There are, however, some areas in need of development, and this requires innovative collaboration between nurse leaders and educators.