How Likely Is It for a Nurse Student to Become a Competent Nurse? A Protocol for Scale Development and Validation Using a Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to develop and validate a scale for estimating the likelihood of a nurse student to become a competent nurse.Admitting students to nursing schools without assessing their personal characteristics has led to serious consequences, including low quality of nursing care. Early detection of students who are at risk of attrition or becoming non-competent nurses can save the time, money, and energy devoted to educating and training the future nurses.A mixed methods design will be employed. Using literature review and interviews with nurse students, clinical nurses, nurse experts, and nurse managers during the first qualitative phase, we will build a comprehensive item pool that has a focus on nurse students' personal characteristics. To increase the trustworthiness of interview findings, we will distinguish competent versus incompetent nurses by measuring their competence levels. In the second quantitative phase, the Nurse Competence Predicting Scale will be developed and tested for psychometric properties.We believe that Nurse Competence Predicting Scale may help in early identification of nurse students who are at risk of not acquiring expected nurse competencies on graduation or joining the workforce. In such cases, educational managers may take timely remedial interventions.Key words: nurse competence, personality characteristics, emotional intelligence, nurse student, mixed methods study, scale development, psychometric evaluation P ro f essi o n al c o n t ri buti o n B A CK GROU NDNurse competence has been extensively addressed in the literature in terms of safety and quality of nursing care (1-3). The competence of nurses directly influences the health status of patients, and could reduce morbidity, mortality, and undesirable outcomes (4-6).Evidence shows that caring professions necessitate particular personal and psychological characteristics, as well as essential knowledge and aptitude (7-9). Personality characteristics can strongly affect performance (10), educational achievements, job satisfaction, and ability of nurse students (11). Hence, some key personal characteristics are important in acquiring appropriate and effective nursing competence. On the other hand, these characteristics might only change desirably to as little as 30%, even in the excellent educational systems (12, 13). Therefore, applicants must be assessed for such attributes ideally before admission, to ensure that their personality matches with the job requisites (14).Nursing schools invest money, time, and energy to educate and train nurse students, expecting that they will join the health care workforce. In Iran, about 100 baccalaureate nursing programs are offered all over the country (15). According to the Iranian Ministry of Health report in 2008, at least 6.400 students on average graduate from the nursing faculties in Iran (16). Nursing faculty anticipates students who will be academically successful and become competent in their profession, so as to compassionately provide high quality care to their clien...