How competent are they? Graduate nurses self-assessment of competence at the start of their careers

Abstract

For many decades there has been ongoing debate about what it means to be competent and how competence develops and is assessed. A particular target in the debate has been graduate nurses. Despite the extent of competence of graduate nurses being questioned, very little research has examined graduate nurse competence at the time of commencing employment. This study sought to redress this gap.Forty-seven graduate nurses starting a graduate nurse programme in a large paediatric hospital were invited to participate in a study investigating the development of competence. All graduate nurses agreed to participate and completed the Nurse Competence Scale, a 73 item questionnaire across seven domain..