Quality and improvement in relation to nursing core competency.
Purpose
To evaluate the effectiveness of nursing core competency standard education in undergraduate nursing training.
Methods
Forty-two nursing undergraduates from the class of 2007 were recruited as the control group receiving conventional teaching methods, while 31 students from the class of 2008 were recruited as the experimental group receiving nursing core competency standard education. Teaching outcomes were evaluated using comprehensive theoretical knowledge examination and objective structured clinical examination.
Results
The performance in the health information collection, physical assessment, scenario simulation and communication in the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05).
Conclusions
Nursing core competency standard education is helpful for the training of nursing students' core competencies.
Keywords
Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate, Teaching methods, Core competency
1. Introduction
The trend of health care, including nursing, has been trending toward a more patient-centric, integrated platform in China. This includes transformation of the medical model, the renewal of the conception of health, the increasing incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, new innovations in the health care system and a rapidly aging population. These changes accentuate the contradiction between limited teaching time and unlimited teaching content in the traditional nursing education model which simply based on imparting knowledge and skills [1]. An important subject for nursing educators in the national and abroad is how to close the gap between this limited teaching time and unlimited content to train high quality nurses that are ready to adapt to the rapidly changing health care system. Competency-based education is a concept and educational model that is consistent with the idea and guidelines of reforming our vocational education and higher education issued by State Council and Ministry of Education [2]. del Bueno [3] first proposed the idea of nursing competency-based education. Lenburg [4] established competency outcomes and performance assessment model in 1999. Nursing core competencies include assessment and intervention, communication, critical thinking, teaching, human caring relationships, management, leadership, and knowledge integration skill were identified. Nursing core competency standard education is a holistic nursing education idea incorporating these competencies while imparting knowledge, cultivating ability and improving quality [5]. School of nursing, Capital Medical University in China has been reforming of nursing teaching model by successfully incorporating this competency based training model for undergraduate nursing students since 2005.
