Psychometric evaluation of the French version of the Clinical Nursing Competence Questionnaire (CNCQ-22): A cross-sectional study in nursing education in Burkina Faso

Competency assessment for community health nurses: a focus group expert panel discussion

Background

General Practice setting in the Primary Health Care Services are the utmost visited by the public. It is important that the nurses’ competencies in this area be assessed to ensure provision of safe and quality services.

Aim/objective

To explore perceptions and experiences of competencies assessment tool for community health nurses working at the General Practice setting in the Primary Health Care Services.

Methods

An exploratory qualitative study utilizing focus group discussions were conducted on purposive sample of 12 officers with expertise in competency assessment and community health nursing from higher nursing education institutions, the Nursing Training and Development Centre, the Nursing Board and the Community Health Nursing Services in Brunei Darussalam. The existing competencies assessment tool was revised, the participants were divided into two groups of expert panel review team and two focus group discussions were held with each team. The focus group discussions encompassed components and methods of assessment; methods of grading; and overall organization and structure of the revised competency assessment tool.

Findings

Four themes emerged: 1) International equivalent core competencies components; 2) Multi-methods approach to assessment; 3) Definitive guidelines as framework for assessment; and 4) Understanding and acceptability of the competency assessment tool.

Conclusions/implications to practice

The expert panel reviews provide practical input that were inculcated in the preliminary developed competencies assessment tool. Identification of eligible assessors were recommended based on standardized criteria, and socialization and training held to set direction and guidance for implementing the utilization of the competencies assessment tool. Further studies are deemed important to critically evaluate and validate the preliminary competencies assessment tool for development of a more robust assessment instrument.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-022-00898-y.

Correlation between Spiritual Intelligence and Clinical Competency in Students Who Are Children of War Victims

Objective: Providing effective and correct care to patients requires clinical competence. One of the important components in clinical competence is spiritual intelligence the purpose of the study was to consider the correlation between clinical competence and spiritual intelligence in students who are children of victims of war of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2019. Method : The cross-sectional study was carried out on 145 Martyrs' and War Veterans' Students of medical, nursing, midwifery, and paramedical schools. Sampling was done through census of students of operating room, anesthesia, medicine, nursing, midwifery, laboratory science, and radiology. The data collection tools were Kazdin et al's (1986) Spiritual Intelligence questionnaire and Liu et al's (2009) Clinical Competency Assessment questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software. Results: The results of data analysis showed a direct, positive, and significant linear relationship between spiritual intelligence and clinical competence of all students (P < 0.05). According to the students' self-report, the highest mean score of clinical competency of the students was related to medical students with a mean score of 37 and the lowest to the laboratory students with a mean score of 30 (P =0.012). In addition, the results showed that the highest mean score of spiritual intelligence belonged to nursing students with a score of 48 (good spiritual intelligence) and the lowest to radiology students with a score of 39 (moderate spiritual intelligence) (P =0.019). Conclusion: We found that there is a direct and positive correlation between spiritual intelligence and clinical competence, so it seems that promoting spiritual intelligence may be associated with an increase in clinical competence.

Co-Development of a Web-Based Hub (eSocial-hub) to Combat Social Isolation and Loneliness in Francophone and Anglophone Older People in the Linguistic Minority Context (Quebec, Manitoba, and New Brunswick): Protocol for a Mixed Methods Interventional Study

Background

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has severely hit Canadian nursing facilities (81% of deaths). To this toll, public health measures (eg, visitation restriction) have subsequently deepened the social isolation and loneliness of residents in nursing facilities (NFs), especially those in linguistic minority settings: Anglophone institutions in Quebec and Francophone institutions outside Quebec. However, very few COVID-19 initiatives targeting these populations specifically have been documented. Given the limited number of NFs serving linguistic minorities in Canadian populations, families and loved ones often live far from these facilities, sometimes even in other provinces. This context places the digital solutions as particularly relevant for the present COVID-19 pandemic as well as in the post–COVID-19 era.

Objective

This project aims to co-develop a virtual community of practice through a web-based platform (eSocial-hub) to combat social isolation and loneliness among the older people in linguistic minority settings in Canada.

Methods

An interventional study using a sequential mixed methods design will be conducted. Four purposely selected NFs will be included, 2 among facilities in Manitoba and 2 in New Brunswick; and 2 Anglophone NFs in Quebec will serve as knowledge users. The development of eSocial-hub will include an experimental 4-month phase involving the following end users: (1) older people (n=3 per NF), (2) families of the participating older people (n=3 per NF), and (3) frontline staff (nurse and health care aid; n=2 per NF).

Results

Activities and solutions aiming at reducing social isolation and loneliness will be implemented and then evaluated with the project stakeholders, and the best practices generated. The assessment will be conducted using indicators derived from the 5 domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. The project will be led by an interdisciplinary team and will involve a multisectoral partnership.

Conclusions

The project will develop a promising and generalizable solution that uses virtual technology to help reduce social isolation and loneliness among the older people.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/30802

Developing and Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of the Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for Nursing Students

Aim

This study aims to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for nursing students.

Methods

This study was conducted with 318 nursing students, including third-year students enrolled in a pediatric nursing course and fourth-year students completing a pediatric nursing internship. Factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, item-total score analysis, and known-groups comparison were used to assess the research data. In total, 16 items were eliminated from the scale on the basis of experts’ recommendations.

Results

The scale consisted of 39 items and 8 sub-scales. The 8 sub-scales exhibited 66.4% of the total variance. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that all factor loads were greater than 0.40. The CFA also revealed that all of the fit indices were greater than 0.85, and the root mean square error of approximation was less than 0.08. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.96 for the entire scale, and greater than 0.80 for all sub-scales.

Conclusion

The Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for nursing students was found to be valid and reliable.

Newly Qualified Nurses' Perception of Their Competency Achievement on Leaving University: A Qualitative Study

Background: After implementing the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe Project, numerous efforts have been made to define, establish, and evaluate nursing competences. The European Federation of Nurses Association played a key role in enacting the nursing competences included in Directive 2013/55/EU. Nevertheless, assessing competences remains elusive, and there is little research into nurses’ perceptions of the competency training provided by their universities. The purpose of the study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of newly qualified nurses about the competences they acquired during their university education. Methods: A qualitative research study was developed in a Spanish university. Twelve semi-structured interviews with newly qualified nurses were conducted, and two focus groups made up of twelve students were carried out in order to triangulate the results. Participants were recruited through email contact. Interviews focused on clinical training, theoretical content, and the reality of healthcare. Data was analyzed thematically. Results: Two main themes emerged: (1) improving theoretical content and (2) rethinking practical lessons and clinical training. A lack of knowledge about mental health, pharmacology, or critical care has been found; in addition, it was highlighted, among others, the need to improve communication skills in difficult and conflictive situations. Conclusions: Considering the participants’ perception of deficiency in some aspects of most of the competences established by the European Federation of Nurses Association, further research has been suggested to include other stakeholders’ views.

The State of the Science on Clinical Evaluation in Nursing Education

AIM

The purpose was to synthesize the published evidence to present the state of the science in clinical evaluation research in nursing education.

BACKGROUND

Clinical evaluation is key to ensuring nursing students' clinical competence, application of knowledge, and critical thinking, all of which are important to patient safety and quality nursing care.

METHOD

Cooper's research synthesis method was used.

RESULTS

A comprehensive literature search resulted in 250 documents, of which 88 met study criteria. Topics were exhaustive but not mutually exclusive and included competence, instrumentation, congruence, teaching methods, objective structured clinical evaluation, faculty/preceptor issues with clinical evaluation, essential clinical behaviors, topic-based evaluation, decision-making about clinical grade, and clinical reasoning.

CONCLUSION

Nursing education science is in its infancy in many areas. Two areas most in need of future research are the need to accurately define and efficiently measure competence in the clinical area and the need for reliable and valid instrumentation.