Aims
To identify and critically appraise the available evidence on paediatric nurses’ clinical competencies performed autonomously regarding disease prevention and health promotion activities for children and adolescents in primary healthcare worldwide.
Design
A systematic review design in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses statement.
Data sources
The search was conducted through MEDLINE (PubMed), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, SCOPUS, The Cochrane Library, Scientific Electronic Library Online, Web of Science and The Joanna Briggs Institute EBP (Ovid) databases. The grey literature was reviewed at OpenGrey. Additional studies were located through a references list of selected studies identified on first search.
Review methods
Database search employed MeSH terms: (paediatric nursing) AND (primary healthcare) AND ((clinical skills) OR (clinical competences)). Studies published from inception to October 2019 exploring paediatric nurses' clinical competencies in primary healthcare were eligible for inclusion. No language restrictions were applied in the main search. Selection was made by two reviewers independently. Three independent reviewers assessed the methodological quality of included studies.
Results
Eighteen studies were included from six countries. The most common nursing competencies independently performed identified and described in studies were Health education and advice, Child and adolescent health and development assessment, Immunizations and Child health checks.
Conclusion
Studies describe clinical competencies of nurses in children care. No consistent scientific evidence is available about clinical competencies of paediatric nurses performed autonomously in primary care.
Impact
Few scientific studies identifying and assessing nurses' child primary healthcare skills were found and therefore recorded. Studies describe nurses' clinical skills in childhood, but results do not show firm consistency assessing their practice scope. Health policy‐makers should encourage the development of nurses' competencies if they wish to preserve quality and equity of healthcare services to children. Therefore, the first step is to identify the autonomous competencies of paediatric nurses in primary care.
Background: Europe has recently faced the challenge of providing high-quality care for patients with epilepsy, a disease that generates many health demands. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, advanced practice nursing is well established and could serve as a guide for implantation in countries where it is still in development, as is the case of Spain.Design: A multicentre cross-sectional descriptive cohort study compared differences in the roles of advanced practice nurses in Spain and the United Kingdom.
Methods:The Advanced Practice Role Delineation Tool and its validated Spanish version were administered using an online questionnaire in a cohort of advanced practice epilepsy nurses in both countries. A convenience sample was recruited between January to December 2019. The study complied with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist.Results: Most United Kingdom nurses in our sample came from community environments, in contrast to Spanish nurses who worked in hospital. All domains analysed in the survey had significantly higher scores in the United Kingdom than in the Spanish cohort, especially in the research and leadership domains.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.