Assessment of soft and hard skills in the nursing and students nursing: A scoping review

To conceptualize nursing education and care by evaluating hard and soft skills during training and professional practice, synthesize existing definitions and assessment strategies of soft skills.

The nursing discipline is made up of a theoretical and practical framework, which is increasingly technical and scientific, focusing on professionalizing care to the detriment of care. While consensus exists regarding the hard skills, there is no agreement on how to define soft skills. This disagreement creates challenges for curriculum design, clinical assessment and the humanization of care.

Scoping review METHOD: A scoping review has been carried out and scientific databases have been consulted, such as: PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, Web of Science (WOS), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Literature Complete (CINAHL) and PsycINFO. This review was registered in PROSPERO with the code: CRD42024563866.

A scoping review of 11 of 1182 studies. A consensus is established in the educational system on what techniques a nursing student should know as well as a nurse in their daily clinical practice. Different strategies and interventions have been obtained, without there being a consensus on defining what soft skills should be. Strategies and interventions are reported, but no standardized framework has been established.

This review identifies a critical gap in the educational and clinical fields. Striking a balance between hard and softs skills is essential to ensuring high-quality, humanized nursing care.