Self-assessed level of graduating nursing students’ nursing skills

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the level of nursing skills at the point of graduation based on students' self-assessments and to identify possible related factors. Background: Nursing skills have been identified as one of the key factors in enhancing patient safety. Maintaining patient safety is a major concern for nurses, which is why the level of graduating nurses' skills needs to be evaluated. Also, little is known about factors related to students' nursing skills. Methods: Evaluation is based on graduating nursing students' (n = 154, response rate 51%) self-assessments during final clinical placements in Finnish university hospitals in 2011. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics such as paired T-test, Multifactor Analysis of Covariance and Pearson/Spearman correlation coefficients were used to analyse the data. Results: The overall level of nursing skills was self-assessed as good (75.4; VAS 0-100). Nursing skills related to the care of a dying patient was the only category assessed to be on moderate level (63.1; VAS>57-66.8). The more positively the students self-assessed their readiness for practice based on nurse education and the supervisory relationship in clinical placement, the higher was the self-assessed level of nursing skills. Conclusions: Students' assessments of their level of nursing skills should be taken into account when planning orientation and mentorship programmes for practical work to ensure safe and qualified patient care. Nurse educators should ensure that students can practice nursing skills related to care of a dying person during nurse education. A knowledge test, observation, or comparing the students' evaluations to assessments by mentors could provide a more comprehensive picture of the level of students' nursing skills.

Work readiness, transition, and integration: The challenge of specialty practice

“…According to Caballero, Walker, and Fuller-Tyszkiewicz (2011), it is "the extent to which graduates are perceived to possess the attitudes and attributes that make them prepared or ready for success in the work environment" (p. 42). The key features of work readiness identified by researchers include both hard and soft skills such as theoretical knowledge and cognitive ability (Kajander-Unkuri et al, 2014), time management (Hegney, Eley, & Francis, 2013), working collaboratively (Dlamini et al, 2014), problem-solving (Walker, Storey, Costa, & Leung, 2015), and communication (Cantlay et al, 2017). The key features of work readiness identified by researchers include both hard and soft skills such as theoretical knowledge and cognitive ability (Kajander-Unkuri et al, 2014), time management (Hegney, Eley, & Francis, 2013), working collaboratively (Dlamini et al, 2014), problem-solving (Walker, Storey, Costa, & Leung, 2015), and communication (Cantlay et al, 2017).…”

“…Yet they acknowledge there is "a lack of clarity and consensus … with regard to the general skills and attributes that indicate work readiness" and the concept itself (p. 42). The key features of work readiness identified by researchers include both hard and soft skills such as theoretical knowledge and cognitive ability (Kajander-Unkuri et al, 2014), time management (Hegney, Eley, & Francis, 2013), working collaboratively (Dlamini et al, 2014), problem-solving (Walker, Storey, Costa, & Leung, 2015), and communication (Cantlay et al, 2017).…”

Characteristics of a critical care clinical placement programme affecting critical care nursing competency of baccalaureate nursing students: A structural equation modelling

“…Although self‐assessment of one's competency is crucial to develop reflective skills (Kajander‐Unkuri et al, ; Lakanmaa et al, ), these results must be analysed with caution since our study utilised self‐report instruments. Student nurses may have overestimated their competence levels because they may lack awareness of the minimally required competence in the critical care units, a finding like that of Lakanmaa et al () and Kajander‐Unkuri et al (). It is, therefore, advisable that competency be evaluated through self‐assessment tools and direct observations by clinical instructors.…”

Self-assessed anaesthesia nursing competence and related factors

“…In Finland, the qualification to be a nurse (3.5 years of full-time study and 210 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) is provided at polytechnics (called universities of applied sciences) and is focused on a general registered nurses qualification (Bachelor of Health Care). [2,7] Anaesthesia departments in hospitals have then trained registered nurses through their own orientation programmes for anaesthesia nursing; after which they are called anaesthesia nurses. [2,8,9] The goal of nurse education is to provide an appropriate theoretical and clinical experience to prepare nurses to meet the challenges of clinical practice.…”

“…Since the majority of the competence studies in anaesthesia nursing have been simulation-based studies with a small sample size, it was difficult to use an inferential statistical approach; there seems to be a lack of research on factors associated with competence. Among the assessment methods, self-assessment is considered to be a common approach in terms of time-saving and cost-effectiveness when measuring nurse competence in clinical settings, [6,7,10,15,29,31,33] and also enables a larger sample size to be used than simulationbased studies.…”