BACKGROUND Due to the increasing burden of life-limiting illnesses, palliative care has been demanded. Nurses’ palliative care competence is a vital factor in improving its accessibility. A reliable instrument is needed. Our aim was to translate and culturally adapt the Palliative Care Nursing Self-Competence scale (PCNSC) into Simplified Chinese (PCNSC-SC). METHODS Two cross-sectional studies were conducted after the content validity had been confirmed during the translation and adaption. The convergent validity, construct validity, internal consistency, and homogeneity were evaluated both in the first and second studies. The test-retest reliability was assessed only in the first study. Clinical nurses who had a registered nurse qualification certificate and at least 12 months of work experience from a tertiary hospital in Hubei, China participated in the two studies. RESULTS The PCNSC-SC contains eight dimensions and 34 items. Goodness-of-fit indices in confirmatory factor analysis met the criteria. The Cronbach’s alpha of the PCNSC-SC was 0.984 and 0.990 in the two studies, respectively. The test-retest reliability of the PCNSC-SC after two weeks was 0.717. CONCLUSION The Simplified Chinese version of the PCNSC (PCNSC-SC) can be used to evaluate perceived self-competence in palliative care of Chinese nurses with good reliability and validity.

Aim The aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of perceived self‐competence in palliative care among emergency care nurses and explore its predictors. Background Emergency care nurses have a responsibility to develop palliative care competence to enhance the quality of life of dying patients and their families in the emergency department. Methods With a convenience sample, a cross‐sectional study was conducted among 415 emergency care nurses from 22 hospitals in China. Descriptive analysis, Spearman correlation analysis and multivariate linear stepwise regression were performed. Results Variables including marital status (single), emergency department not implementing palliative care, no palliative care training and true cooperation dimension were selected as independent predictors and explained 19.9% of variation in the regression model. Conclusions Interventions to improve healthy work environments, offering palliative care training, advocating for policies in palliative care and offering support to unmarried nurses can advance nurses' palliative care competence. Implications for nursing management This is the first study of emergency care nurses in China aimed at identifying predictors associated with palliative care self‐competence. It is significant in that palliative care training and a cooperative work environment are required to encourage the development of palliative care.