Saowanee Naowapanich
Mahidol University, Thailand
Title: Development of a competency scale for cardiovascular nurses at a university hospital
Biography
Biography: Saowanee Naowapanich
Abstract
Nurses who take care for patients with cardiovascular disease patients have the right to determine a performance to suit different situations. Performance assessment tools must be accurate. This tool can be used to evaluate the real talent.
Objective : 1) to analyze the expectation on competencies of professional nurses who took care of patients with cardiovascular diseases at Siriraj Hospital, 2) to develop a competency scale for cardiovascular nurses, and 3) to evaluate the implementation of the developed competency scale.
Methods: The research setting was a cardiac care unit at Siriraj Hospital. Key informants were selected by a purposive sampling technique. These included the informants about expectations on competencies comprising head nurses, professional nurses, nurse educators, physicians, patients, and caregivers. The instruments were semi-structured interview guides about expectation on competencies, a competency scale, and an evaluation form for the implementation of the developed competency scale.
Main findings: 1) The expectation of competencies of cardiovascular nurses consisted of 8 issues, which were used for developing the competency scale. 2) The competency scale for cardiovascular nurses should consist of 3 aspects including professional competency, common functional competency and specific functional competency. 3) After implementation, the results showed that the developed competency scale could be applied to evaluate the performance of nurses and classify performance of each nurse.
Conclusion and recommendations: This study provides an informational base for the further development of a competency scale for nurses to assess their competencies according to the comprehensive and desired performance.