Regional competency assessment tool for nurse educators
Overview
Nurses make up 53% of health-care professionals in the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asian Region. They have a vital role to play in organizing and applying health actions, both at the front line and managerial levels (1). Knowledgeable, engaging, and skilled nurse educators who can teach with compassion, plan, organize, implement, and evaluate appropriate education programmes are prerequisites for quality nursing training (2).The Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 (3), the Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery 2021–2025 (4), and SEARO’s initiative on the Decade of Health Workforce Strengthening 2015–2024 in the South-East (SE) Asia Region (5) all include strengthening education as a policy priority to progress toward universal health coverage.
Competency in health care can be described as the application of knowledge and skills, and demonstrating appropriate behaviour and judgement in practice on a regular basis. Nursing competency is defined as “the ability to take action by combining knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and experience acquired as a nurse.” Competency can be viewed as an integrated performance reflecting the professional nurse’s feelings, thoughts, and judgement (6). Quality nursing pre- and in-service education and training are critical for producing well-educated, motivated, and skilled nurses who can meet the health needs of the people they serve today and in the future (7, 8). Lack of provision of health care by professionally trained and competent health-care providers has been identified as one of the leading causes of trauma during the process of seeking care and accounts for trillions of dollars lost due to suboptimal care (9). Nurse educators need to be updated in their own clinical skills so that they have the ability to impart comprehensive education to their students (8). Competency-based educational practice is necessary for nurse educators to develop professional skills among their students (2).
WHO has developed global standards of nursing education through a Delphi study (10), listing eight competency areas for nurse educators to ensure the quality of nursing education:
- Identify and apply theories of adult learning to nursing education;
- Develop, revise, implement, and evaluate nursing curricula;
- Maintain current knowledge and practice of evidence-based nursing care;
- Have the ability for critical inquiry and carry out research;
- Have effective communication to facilitate collaborative teamwork;
- Demonstrate and teach ethical, legal, and professional values;
- Apply strategies to monitor nursing education programmes; and
- Demonstrate leadership (10).
WHO published the Nurse Educator Core Competencies to enable educators to effectively contribute to the attainment of high-quality education and to train effective, efficient, and proficient nurses who are able to respond to the health needs of the populations they serve. WHO’s Nurse Educator Core Competencies offer the first uniform global standard for assessing nurse educators’ competencies.
In South-East Asia Region countries, nurses are trained through a diploma or degree course, which may or may not include an integrated internship for graduating nursing students. Although the competencies of nurse educators have been explored sporadically (6, 11–15), the assessments have either been qualitative in nature or developed based on a country-specific training context. Therefore, countries have requested a tool to measure the competencies of nurse educators to assess gaps and improve the quality of education.
A valid and reliable tool for assessing nursing competence is critical to ensure that nurses have the required competencies (2). Several studies have reported the use of self-assessment questionnaires for measuring the confidence and/or competence of nurses and midwives (16–18). Self-assessment is a complex, multifaceted, and multipurpose phenomenon that involves a number of interacting cognitive processes. It includes identifying one’s weaknesses and strengths as a monitor, mentor, and motivator through processes such as evaluation, inference, and prediction (19).
