Psychometric survey of nursing competences illustrated with nursing students and apprentices

Background: The term competences is discussed differently in various disciplines of science. Furthermore there is no international or discipline comprehensive accepted definition of this term. Problem: So far, there are few practical, reliable and valid measuring instruments for a survey of general nursing skills. This article describes the adaptation process of a measuring instrument for medical skills into one for nursing competences. Method: The measurement quality of the questionnaire was audited using a sample of two different courses of studies and regular nursing apprentices. Another research question focused whether the adapted questionnaire is able to detect a change of nursing skills. For the validation of reliability and validity data from the first point of measurement was used (n = 240). The data from the second point of measurement, which was conducted two years later (n = 163), were used to validate, whether the questionnaire is able to detect a change of nursing competences. Results/Conclusions: The results indicate that the adapted version of the questionnaire is reliable and valid. Also the questionnaire was able to detect significant, partly even strong, effects of change in nursing skills (d = 0,17 – 1,04). It was possible to adapt the questionnaire for the measurement of nursing competences.