clinical competence

The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) serves as a scientific evaluation method that effectively enhances clinical assessment techniques and transforms management strategies to solve educational problems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical competency and feedback of senior dental students in Guilan province using the OSCE method.

In this cross-sectional analytical study, 32 senior dental students of Guilan university of Medical Sciences participated in 2024. The data collection tools included questions from the National Clinical Competency Exam of Iran and a feedback questionnaire for students, utilizing the Craig-Patrick Model. Data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics software version 26, employing Pearson correlation, Mann-Whitney, Chi-square, and Fisher's exact tests. P-value > 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean age of the students was 25.55 (SD=3.60) years, and 53.1% were male. The mean GPA of the students surveyed was 16.82 (SD=0.59) out of 20.  The mean total score on the clinical competency exam was 75.12(SD=6.73) out of 100. The highest score was achieved in oral health, while the lowest score was in oral pathology. The test scores in oral surgery (P=0.016) and preclinical restorative courses (P=0.021) were significantly higher in women than in men. No significant correlation was found between the total exam score and student feedback scores (P=0.795). Only 20% of the students had positive feedback regarding this exam.

The average clinical competency score of senior dental students in Guilan was at a good level; however, the students’ feedback regarding the exam was weak. Therefore, there is a need to prepare the necessary infrastructure in terms of facilities, educational environment, human resources, and financial support to enhance the clinical competencies of graduates.

The appointment of managers is one of the most critical decisions in any organization, and it should be based on the competencies of the managers. Managerial competencies at different levels in hospitals offer numerous benefits, including gaining a competitive advantage, strengthening teamwork behavior, and improving financial performance. This study aimed to investigate the role of managerial competencies in enhancing the financial performance of public hospitals in Yazd Province.

This study was applied-developmental in terms of purpose and deductive in terms of approach. In terms of strategy, it was a descriptive-analytical study of the exploratory type, situated within the positivist paradigm. Data were collected using a questionnaire, and the study population comprised managers and supervisors of public hospitals in Yazd Province. Given the limited number of participants, the questionnaire was distributed to all members of the population. Out of 180 distributed questionnaires, 152 valid responses were collected. Data analysis was conducted using Smart PLS3 and SPSS 25 software.

The results indicated that managerial competencies, specifically in the individual, technical, and interactive dimensions, had a direct and significant effect on the financial performance of hospitals.

Selecting competent managers for decision-making related to resource allocation, control, and the efficient utilization of resources can enhance the financial performance of hospitals. Furthermore, it could improve managerial accountability in performance evaluation and help achieve objectives in line with the accreditation standards of public hospitals in Yazd Province.

Logbook is considered as one of the most effective methods of evaluating clinical education, which has been designed and used for nursing students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences since 2017, and few studies have examined the views of the users of this logbook completely. Considering that knowing the strengths and weaknesses of using this method can be a valuable step in the direction of proper evaluation of students; Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the views of students of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences on the use of electronic logbooks in clinical departments.

Method & Materials:

 The present study was a cross-sectional descriptive study that was conducted in the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (2023-2024) and sampling was done by census method. The studied samples included students who had at least one experience of using a logbook. The data collection tool was based on the questionnaire of Najafi et al. (2016), with a correlation coefficient of 80%, which was distributed among students electronically. Data analysis was done using SPSS 20 software.

In this research, 84 nursing, midwifery and operating room students were included in the study, of which 51.19% were female and 71.42% were studying nursing. 33.3% of the students found it necessary to use the log book in the hospital environment. 48.8% considered the existence of a general report of the number of performed clinical activities and matching the items of the logbooks to the clinical lesson plan as the most important quality factor of the electronic logbooks. 52.4% of the students stated that they were fully familiar with the process of completing the electronic log book. 46.4% stated that completing the electronic logbook is not important in their opinion.

There are some deficiencies in the field of necessity, quality, process and method of completing the logbook from the perspective of the students of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, and the highest point of view of the students was related to the necessity of using the logbook; Therefore, it seems necessary for the students by the relevant professors and the officials to revise the contents of the logbook, according to the changing educational needs.

The purpose of upgrading academic degrees in universities/colleges of nursing is to improve the clinical qualification of nurses to provide specialized services. However, there are conflicting findings about the success rate of the postgraduate education system in improving the qualifications of nurses. This study was conducted with the aim of determining and comparing the clinical competence of nurses with B.Sc and M.Sc degrees working in Urmia hospitals in 2024.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 74 nurses with B.Sc and 74 with M.Sc degrees working in the Urmia hospitals in 2024. The data were collected using the questionnaire aof Competency Inventory for Registered Nurses (CIRN) developed by Liu et al. (2009) and analyzed using SPSS software ver. 22.0.

The results showed no significant difference between quantitative and qualitative variables among the B.Sc and M.Sc nurses. The mean clinical competence score for B.Sc. nurses was 137.76 ± 34.75, and for M.Sc. nurses was 153.95 ± 38.56. This mean difference was significant in all dimensions of clinical competence except for the clinical care dimension (P<0.05).

It seems that part of the goals of the relevant ministry regarding the improvement of the clinical competence of senior nursing experts have been achieved. However, due to the moderate level of qualification and the lack of significant differences in clinical care, the researcher suggests that planning and policies should focus on enriching nursing education at the master's level, including conducting comparative research and revising the training program using expert trainers.

Providing quality nursing care has always been the main concern of nurses. Clinical competence and moral courage are effective factors in providing quality nursing care. The present study aims to determine the relationship between clinical competency and moral courage in Iranian nurses.

This is a descriptive-correlational study with a cross-sectional design that was conducted in 2022 on 123 nurses working in teaching hospitals affiliated to Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, who were selected using a simple random sampling method. Data collection tools were Sekarka et al.’s moral courage questionnaire, Liu et al.’s competency inventory for registered nurses, and a demographic form. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance and Pearson’s correlation test in SPSS software, version 16.

The mean scores of clinical competency and moral courage scores were 151.18 ± 22.32 and 59.56 ± 7.47, respectively, indicating a moderate clinical competency and high moral courage. There was a significant and positive (weak) relationship between moral courage and clinical competency (r=0.272, P=0.001).

Due to the moderate clinical competency of nurses, educational workshops are recommended to improve their clinical competence. Moreover, since there is a weak relationship between clinical competency and moral courage of nurses, factors other than clinical competence may be related to moral courage, which requires further studies.

Health organizations have many challenges all over the world due to providing and maintaining the health of the society, and their proper performance depends on the proper management of them. Also, the examination of the state of the country's healthcare system shows that there is no competent clinical leadership in the country and it is necessary to make reforms in it. The purpose of this study was to identify the obstacles and solutions to improve the clinical leadership competence among managers of Gilan University of Medical Sciences. This research is a type of qualitative research that was conducted using the content analysis approach. The statistical community of managers of Gilan University of Medical Sciences was in 1402, and 15 senior managers were selected as participants in the research with a targeted sampling approach. In order to obtain the reliability and validity of the data, two methods of reviewing the participants and reviewing the experts who did not participate in the research were used.After analyzing and combining the data, the data were categorized into 139 primary concepts and 2 main categories and 12 sub-themes. The main categories included: barriers and solutions. Considering the importance of leadership competence and the complexity of specialized work, the role of the Ministry of Health in determining the management perspective, its implementation and monitoring in the whole country, in order to determine the comprehensive health road map, is very key and important. Also, at the individual level, training people and equipping the country's health managers with management tools is very key and vital, in addition to training a generation of specialists.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that an important priority for advancing nursing education is to ensure that nurses are competent to provide effective care during a pandemic or other disasters. This study aimed to determine the clinical competencies required by nurses during the COVID-19 crisis and determine the factors affecting these competencies.

A systematic review was used to carry out this project. First, the keywords of clinical competence, COVID-19, and nurse were searched in the title and abstract of the articles available in PubMed, Scopus, and web of Science databases, using AND and OR operators.

10 related studies were included in the present study. Based on the findings of this systematic review, the clinical competencies needed by nurses in the care of patients with COVID-19 are placed in 4 dimensions: knowledge and experience about COVID-19 disease, prevention ability, preparation ability, medical care and rescue ability. Factors affecting these competencies include: education level, work experience, work experience in infectious or isolation departments, age, sex, job rank, and experience in practicing emergency skills.

The results of this study showed that nurses have poor to average performance in terms of knowledge, experience and preparation against the Covid19 crisis, so training programs and skills development should be designed in such a way that nurses can be empowered to provide the best care and prevention

Clinical competence is one of the requirements that nurses must have in clinical environments, especially psychiatric centers. This issue has a direct impact on the quality of nursing care. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the level of clinical competence, dimensions and related factors in psychiatric nurses working in Razi Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran in 2024.

This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 211 psychiatric nurses. The samples were selected by census method. The data was collected using demographic information questionnaire and "Clinical Competence of Mohtashmi Psychiatric Nurses" questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS 25.

The mean clinical competency score of the psychiatric nurses participating in the study was 147.20±50.37. The mean and standard deviation of general competence, specific competence of the psychiatric nurses participating in the research were 32.47±5.34, 115.02±16.03, respectively. Also, the results of the study showed that participation in specialized psychiatric nursing courses has a significant relationship with clinical competence (p=0.002).

The results of this study show that the clinical competence of psychiatric nurses is at a good level, but more focus should be made on the dimensions of their specialized clinical competence. Also, holding specialized psychiatric nursing courses during service can further improve the quality level of clinical competence of psychiatric nurses in caring for patients with psychiatric disorders. Therefore, it is suggested that nursing managers of medical centers pay attention and emphasize the holding of these courses for psychiatrists.

The main strategy in providing effective care services emphasizes cooperation and teamwork. In order to achieve care goals in the emergency department, nurses as the main care member in this department must have the ability to do team work. Therefore, it is necessary to have accurate and specific tools to check the level of teamwork competence. Due to the lack of a localized tool in this field, this study was conducted with the aim of psychometrically evaluating the team work competence tool in emergency department nurses.

In this psychological study, 220 nurses in educational-therapeutic hospitals affiliated to Qom University of Medical Sciences were included in the study using available sampling method. With the coordination of the team work competence tool designer, the translation of the tool was done by translation-retranslation method. The final version of the tool was subjected to psychoanalysis by the nurses of the emergency departments of Qom city by performing face, content and construct validity and reliability by checking internal consistency and consistency.

The face validity and qualitative content was confirmed with the opinions of nurses and expert panel on all items. All items in face validity have a score higher than 1.5 and the score of all items in the content validity index is higher than 0.79. And in the content validity ratio, it was higher than 0.69 according to Lavshe's table. In examining the internal homogeneity of the tool, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.855 (P=0.001) and the stability of the questionnaire was obtained using the intra-cluster correlation coefficient 0.853.

The Persian questionnaire of teamwork competency in the emergency department has acceptable validity and reliability for use among emergency department nurses in the care of trauma patients.