Nurse competence between three generational nurse cohorts: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Research indicates significant differences between nurse cohorts in many work-related factors. This study compared nurse competence between three generational cohorts comprising the current nursing workforce. The Nurse Competence Scale was used to collect data for this cross-sectional study from 2052 nurses in a university hospital in Finland. Data were analysed statistically. Significant differences were found between nurse cohorts in their competence. The length of work experience had a significant impact on the development of competence. The oldest cohort, with the longest work experience, had the highest competence scores (70.1 on a visual analogue scale), and the youngest had the lowest (59.0). All cohorts were most competent in patient-related nursing tasks, in maintenance of professional competence and in ethical care. Nurses were weakest in the development of nursing practice and the use of evidence-based knowledge. Targeted interventions in teaching-coaching for different nurse generations are needed to ensure the maintenance of nurse competence and high-quality patient care.

Nurse Competence Scale: a systematic and psychometric review

“…Nurses reporting higher competence also reported a higher frequency of using competence in twelve studies (Meretoja , Meretoja & Leino‐Kilpi , Meretoja et al . ,b, , Cowin et al . , , Mäkipeura et al .…”

“…Sociodemographic variables, such as older age in eight studies (Meretoja , Meretoja et al . ,b, , Salonen et al . , Stobinski , Hamström et al .…”

The relationship between workplace learning and midwives’ and nurses’ self-reported competence: A cross-sectional survey

“…On the other hand, the majority of studies on nursing competence remain descriptive in nature, and do not go beyond identifying the antecedents of competence. Indeed, many of the existing studies have aimed at identifying the attributes of nursing competence (Axley, 2008;Smith, 2012;Valloze, 2009), the scales to measure it (Bartlett et al, 2000;Cowan et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2009;Meretoja et al, 2004a), and the level of competence demonstrated by nurses (Chang et al, 2012;Meretoja and Leino-Kilpi, 2003;Meretoja et al, 2014). Only a limited number of studies have explored the antecedents of competence, such as critical thinking ability (Chang et al, 2011;Wangensteen et al, 2012), but none of them have explored the impact of learning.…”

Nurses in post-operative heart surgery: professional competencies and organization strategies

“…Nurses with a longer length of work experience scored higher in competence than younger professionals, showing the need for specific interventions in the training of different generations of nurses to ensure the maintenance of competence and high-quality care to the patient (15) .…”