[Knowledge and skills of newly graduated nurses]

Nursing education was recently reformed in Finland. By now nurses who have graduated from the new programmes have already entered nursing practice. The purpose of this study is to describe the following two aspects: 1) How do the newly graduated nurses assess their own skills and knowledge on completion of their nursing studies and what is their assessment four months later? 2) What skills and knowledge did the nurse managers expect the nurses to have and what, in fact, did they discover when the new nurses began their work in practice? The data were collected by questionnaires, measuring the competencies of professional nurse (Clayton 1983) from a sample (N = 30), which consisted of registered nurses (response rate was 67%), specialized in medical-surgical nursing, and their nurse managers. The nurses had graduated from two different colleges of nursing. Data were analysed by the means and differences of the means. On completion of their studies the nurses felt that their best skills and knowledge were related to the hygienic care of the patient, while their weakest area was in implementing specialized care. In their assessment made four months after graduation the nurses felt that in terms of the different areas of nursing practice their skills and knowledge had improved to some degree. The nurse managers, on the other hand, expected the newly graduated nurses to have better skills and knowledge than what was actually discovered. Furthermore, the nurse managers were clearly more critical in their assessment than the nurses themselves.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)