The Effect of Promoting Clinical Competency on the Nurses Occupational Quality of Life at the Pediatric Wards

Because of the relationship between clinical competency and quality care concept, clinical competency in nursing, as a practical discipline, has a unique status. On the other hand, one of the most important challenges of nursing management for promotion of quality of nursing services is to improve nurses’ occupational quality of life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of promoting nurse's clinical competency on the occupational quality of life in pediatric nurses.
This study was a quasi-experimental, before, and after study that was done on 62 pediatric nurses at selected Hospital of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. First nurse's clinical competency and occupational quality of life was measured. For evaluation of nurse's clinical competency, a check list was used. Sixteen skills were evaluated to assess the clinical competency of nurses. Thus, nurses were observed 3 to 5 times. Occupational quality of life was evaluated by the questionnaire. Then, in five meetings that lasted two hours, the process of educating about child and family was trained to the nurses. After 3 months, nurse's clinical competency and occupational quality of life were evaluated. Data were analyzed by the SPSS 21, using descriptive statistics and paired t-test at significance level of P = 0.05.
Before the intervention, level of clinical competency of all nurses was at a medium and low level. After the intervention, clinical competency of 93.5% of the nurses was promoted from the low level to the medium level. There was a significant difference between mean clinical competency before and after the intervention. Before the intervention, the majority of nurses (66.1%) had medium occupational quality of life. After the intervention, occupational quality of life of most nurses (75.8%) was reported as medium. There was a significant difference between the mean occupational quality of life before and after the intervention.
Promoting clinical competency, even in a scope, improves occupational quality of life. For this reason and regarding the mission of clinical governance at health centers and providing more safety and quality of care provided to patients, it is recommended to promote clinical competency by planning for a period of continuing medical education, as a program to be carried out annually.