Evaluating clinical competence during nursing education: A comprehensive integrative literature review

This paper explored concepts, definitions and theoretical perspectives evaluating clinical competence during nursing education. The questions were: (i) How is clinical competence evaluated? and (ii) What is evaluated? An integrative review of 19 original research articles from 2009 to 2013 was performed. Results showed that evaluation tools were used in 14, observations in 2 and reflecting writing in 3 studies. The students participated in all but one evaluation alone or together with peers, faculty members or preceptors. Three themes were found: (i) professional practice with a caring perspective; (ii) clinical skills and reflective practice; and (iii) cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills both with a nursing perspective. This review shows an emphasis on structured methods with a risk reducing nursing to tasks and skills why combinations with qualitative evaluations are recommended. A holistic view of competence dominated and in designing evaluations, explicit perspectives and operationalized definitions of clinical competence became evident.