The Association of Competence and Critical Thinking in the Nurses in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Abstract

Background & Aims:The growing sophistication of modern diseases demands a critical level of nursing competence, which could enhance the quality of patient care and patient satisfaction with nurses. Nursing competence is influenced by several factors, such as the clinical environment, work experience, motivation, theoretical knowledge, and personal traits of nurses. In addition, critical thinking could affect the competence of nurses. Critical thinking enables individuals to make decisions and take actions when there are no specific answers, and opposing forces influence decision-making. Critical thinking is a fundamental process for safe, efficient, and skilled nursing in various situations and is also essential to the competence of healthcare professional for the assessment, diagnosis, and effective patient care. Regardless of the correlation of these two variables, competence and critical thinking should be evaluated separately since they are vital to the management, provision, and fulfillment of healthcare services. Therefore, it is possible to ensure the quality of the healthcare services provided to patients by determining the educational needs of nurses and the area that requires improvement. The assessment of these criteria not only assists nurses and managers to be aware of the quality of the competence and critical thinking of nurses, but it also identifies their cognitive deficiencies and weaknesses for their rectification and improvement. Considering the complexity of the assessment of each of the variables of competence and critical thinking and their association in the nurses working in hospitals where many patients with special and complicated conditions refer to, the present study aimed to evaluate the association of competence and critical thinking in the nurses of Imam Khomeini Hospital affiliated to Tehran

Primary healthcare accreditation standards: a systematic review

“…In Iran, hospital care and rural healthcare accreditation models have recently been developed by the Ministry of Health (Jafari et al , 2011; Tabrizi and Gharibi, 2012; Tabrizi et al , 2013). However, there is no comprehensive accreditation model to evaluate Iranian PHC performance in either urban or rural areas.…”

Clinical competence of Iranian nurses

“…Eight studies[ 2 13 14 15 16 17 18 ] ( n = 1385) measured and reported the mean of clinical competency among nurses by CIRN. After meta-analysis of the mean score of nurses’ clinical competence, the pooled mean was 161.13 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 137.78–184.48; P < 0.001; I 2 = 99.8%; P value for heterogeneity = P < 0.001) [ Figure 3 ].…”

“…A reduced statistical heterogeneity was found following meta-analysis of the clinical competency measured through CIRN according to the female percentage of the study population[ 2 13 14 15 17 18 19 [ Table 4 and Figure 4 ].…”

“…Six studies[ 2 13 15 16 17 18 ] reported nursing work experience in their studies in which the CIRN questionnaire had assessed clinical competency. The pooled mean of clinical competency in nurses who had nursing work experience ≥9 years was 169.16 (95% CI: 164.35–173.97) compared with 139.57 (89.42–189.71) in nurses with work experience <9 years.…”

“…Factors such as spiritual intelligence,[ 13 ] quality of working life,[ 36 ] emotional intelligence,[ 15 ] self-efficacy,[ 19 ] job satisfaction,[ 26 ] rational and intuitive decision-making styles,[ 21 ] critical thinking,[ 17 ] and organizational commitment[ 33 ] had a significant positive relationship with nurses’ clinical competence. However, the clinical competence of nurses had a significant negative relationship with job stress.…”