The Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale: A tool that can be used in national and international assessments of nursing education programmes (original) (raw)
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Nordic Journal of Nursing Research, 2019
Nursing education will play an important role in further advancing healthcare transformation in the future. The aim of this study was to assess and compare nursing education and self-reported professional competence among nursing students graduating with a bachelor's degree from higher education institutions in Europe. Data were collected using the Nurse Professional Competence Scale including 88 items and eight competence areas. In total, 752 nursing students at 11 higher education institutions in Europe participated in the study, with a response rate of 88.7%. The highest measured mean scores were found in the competence areas ‘Value-based nursing care’ and ‘Medical technical care’ and the lowest were found in ‘Legislation in nursing and safety planning’ and ‘Education and supervision of staff and students’. Nursing students in central Europe scored significantly higher on seven out of the eight competence areas than nursing students in northern and southern Europe. In order t...
Nurse Education Today, 2018
Background: The Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale with 88-items has been used to measure selfreported competence among nursing students and registered nurses in many national and international nursing research projects. However, a shorter version of the scale with maintained quality has been requested to further enhance its usability. Objectives: To develop and evaluate the construct validity and internal consistency of a shorter version of the NPC Scale. Design: A developmental and methodological design. Participants and Settings: The study was based on a sample of 1810 nursing students at the point of graduation from 12 universities in Sweden. Methods: The number of items in the original NPC Scale was reduced using several established research steps and then evaluated for data quality and construct validity using principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was measured as internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha. Results: The extensive process of reducing the number of items resulted in a version with 35 items. Principal component analysis resulted in six factors explaining 53.6% of the variance: "Nursing Care", "Value-based Nursing Care", "Medical and Technical Care", "Care Pedagogics", "Documentation and Administration of Nursing Care", and "Development, Leadership, and Organization of Nursing Care". All factors showed Cronbach's alpha values of > 0.70. The confirmative factor analysis goodness-of-fit indexes were for root mean square error of approximation 0.05 and for comparative fit index 0.89. Conclusions: The NPC Scale Short Form (NPC Scale-SF) 35-items revealed promising results with a six-factor structure explaining 53.6% of the total variance. This 35-item scale can be an asset when used alone and together with other instruments it can provide the possibility of more complex analyses of self-reported competence among nursing students and registered nurses.
Self-assessed level of competence of graduating nursing students and factors related to it
Nurse Education Today, 2014
s u m m a r y Background: The transition from a nursing student to a professional nurse is both challenging and stressful. Competence of graduating nursing students is related to patient safety and there is a need for assessment of competence. However, there is a lack of research on the level of competence at the moment of graduation. Objectives: To describe the level of competence of graduating nursing students based on students' selfassessments and to identify possible related factors. Design: Cross-sectional survey design. Methods: The data were collected using an on-line survey (the Nurse Competence Scale) in 2011 and administered to 302 graduating nursing students in Finland practicing in their final clinical placement in university hospitals. The sample contained 154 students (response rate 51%). The data were analyzed statistically. Results: The self-assessed overall competence was on good level (66.7, VAS 0-100). The competence was highest in helping role and in diagnostic functions, being slightly lower in therapeutic interventions and work role. Pedagogical atmosphere during the final clinical placement had a statistically significantly positive correlation with the overall level of competence. Conclusions: Graduating nursing students have good competence at the moment of graduation based on their self-assessments. Self-assessment is a basis for competence development, and systematic self-assessments should be used during the education. Teacher and supervisor assessments and knowledge-tests could be used alongside with self-assessments of competence to give a wider picture of the competence.
Validating the Nurse Professional Competence Scale with Australian baccalaureate nursing students
Collegian, 2021
Background: Professional competence is necessary to enhance patients' quality of care and safety, however not much is known about nursing students' perceptions of their professional competence at the point of graduation, particularly in the Australian context. Aim: To validate the Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale in the Australian context and explore graduating nursing students' perceptions of their own competence and their suggestions to improve their learning experience. Method: A cross sectional survey incorporating the NPC Scale was conducted with student nurses at the point of graduation at one large Australian University. Results: Fifty-six graduating nursing students completed the NPC Scale. Scale reliability measured via Cronbach's alpha was 0.96. Almost 80% of nursing students felt confident with their nursing skills and felt that the nursing program had prepared them for a graduate position as a registered nurse. Students reported their highest competence was in Value-based Nursing Care (m=89.4) and Documentation & Administration of Nursing Care (m=86.7), and the lowest were Development, Leadership & Organisation of Nursing Care (m=80.9) and Care Pedagogy (m=83.0). Students' most common suggestion to improve the learning experience was to provide additional clinical workplace experience. Discussion: The NPC Scale demonstrated excellent reliability in the Australian context. The areas that scored highest and lowest on the NPC were congruent with findings using this instrument in other countries. Conclusion: Further validation of the NPC Scale should include a larger sample that includes both graduating nursing students from multiple universities as well as registered nurses and incorporates confirmatory factor analysis.
Self‐assessed competence of final‐year nursing students
Nursing open, 2023
Aim: To examine the overall level of self-assessed competence of final-year nursing ‘bachelors’ degree students in the Czech Republic. In addition, the study aimed at the factors associated with the students' level of competence. Design: A cross-sectional observational study. Methods: Data were collected with the Czech version of the Nurse Competence Scale from 274 final-year nursing students of the bachelor's nursing program. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analyses. Results: Majority of the students (80.3%) assessed their level of competence as good or very good. The highest level of competence was assessed in the category of ‘man- aging situations’ (VAS mean 67.8) and ‘work role’ (VAS mean 67.2). Previous work experience in healthcare and successful supervisory experience had a positive as- sociation with self-assessed competence. Students who completed clinical placement during the COVID-19 pandemic assessed their level of competence as lower than stu- dents before the pandemic. No Patient or Public Contribution.
Journal of Advanced Nursing
Aims: To identify clusters based on graduating nursing students' self-reported professional competence and their achievement on a national examination. Furthermore, to describe and compare the identified clusters regarding sample characteristics, students' perceptions of overall quality of the nursing programme, and students' general self-efficacy (GSE). Design: A cross-sectional study combining survey data and results from a national examination. Methods: Data were collected at two universities and one university college in Sweden in January 2017, including 179 students in the final term of the nursing programme. The study was based on the Nurse Professional Competence Scale, the GSE scale, and results from the National Clinical Final Examination. A two-step cluster analysis was used to identify competence profiles, followed by comparative analyses between clusters. Results: Three clusters were identified illustrating students' different competence profiles. Students in Clusters 1 and 2 passed the examination, but differed in their This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Bakirkoy Tip Dergisi / Medical Journal of Bakirkoy
Objective: Nursing competence is a basic skill to fulfill the professional roles and responsibilities. Therefore, there is a need for studies to develop the valid and reliable measurement tools to identify the professional competences and competence levels expected from the nurses and evaluate them in the regular intervals. This study aims to develop a valid and reliable tool that could be used to assess the professional competence of the nurses. Methods: The study has a methodological design. The population of this study included 3,133 nurses who worked at three training and research hospitals, one university hospital, and one private hospital in the Istanbul, and its sample included 902 nurses. The study used a Nurse Information Form and Nursing Professional Competence Scale Draft Form. Results: The item-total score correlations ranged from 0.56-0.90. In the exploratory factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was calculated as 0.970, and the Bartlett's test of Sphericity result was also significant [x 2 (2211)=43301.45; p<0.01]. The Cronbach's alpha of the Nursing Professional Competence scale was calculated as 0.98. Conclusion: The study found that the Nursing Professional Competence scale is a valid and reliable tool to use. The scale developed in this context could be used in the researches to determine the professional competences of the nurses, to identify the variables affecting the professional competences of nurses, and to examine the effects of nursing education programs on professional competences of the nurses.
Journal of Nursing Education and Practice
The link between the level of qualification described as competence of the nursing staff and the patient outcome is repeatedly indicated in patient’s safety studies. The Bologna process initiated in 1999 triggered a Europe-wide reform process in the field of education, leading to reforms in nursing education in Europe that promoted the academization of nursing in many countries. In this context, a shift from teaching to learning outcomes occurred which spurred the development of competence frameworks at the European, national and profession-specific level. Competence measurement instruments are important for improving nursing education as well as nursing practice. Studies using such instruments can point to the strength and limitations of the educational and of the health care system of the countries under study. The aim of this article is to describe the translation process of the English version of the Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale to create a German version to be used...
Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 2020
The assessment of nursing-related competences by suitable instruments has become more relevant. Internationally, applicable instruments have been developed. The German-language version of the Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale seems to be appropriate to measure competences of registered nurses in Austria. The psychometric properties of the scale have not been tested so far. The aim of this study was to examine the content validity of the German version of the NPC Scale. A mixed methods design was applied. Qualitative data were summarized by interpretative-reductive technique; the content validity index (CVI) was used to analyze the quantitative data. Data interpretation was performed by merging the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis. As a result of the content analysis, five categories were determined to summarize the comments and critique. These categories referred to insufficient precision of terms and items, lacking profile-specific scale content to the t...