Concept and elements of nurse competency

    LIU Junª²Li, ZHANG Li, FENG Zhengª²Zhi, WANG Tao

    Office of Psychology, Department of Nursing, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To explore the concept and elements of the nurse competency for guiding the selection and training of excellent nurses. METHODS: The concept and elements of nurse competency were studied through grounded theory methods (technical literature, open coding , axial coding) and quantitative meth (inventory investigation and correlate analysis, etc) and behavior event interview(BEI) etc. RESULTS: ¢Ù Competency of nurses refers to the latent, developing and lasting comprehensive characteristics distinguishing the outstanding nurses from average nurses, which are shaped on the basis of mental condition and by internalizing the acquired ideas and experiences and displayed in vocational behaviors of nurses. It includes 3 dimensions(16 elements): Ability, character and motive dimensions. ¢Ú No significant difference was found in the protocol length beween outstanding and average nurses (P>0.05). The frequencies in coding of most competencies were not correlated to the protocol length, indicating that using frequency in coding was more suitable; category agreement (CA) was 80.05%, Which showed that the two coders¬ð coding were consistent. CONCLUSION: Cultivation of nurses should focus on the comprehensive training with regard to ability, personality, mental motivation and behavior leading. ......