Intern Nurses' Self-Reported Professional Competency, Intention to Leave, Work Stress and Work Satisfaction: A...

In adult intensive care units (ICUs), high-level nursing competency is a significant determinant of patient safety. Due to the cross-country variability in the education system, clinical settings and content of internship programmes, the generalisability of the existing literature on intern nurses' competency is limited. The term intern nurse refers to a graduate nursing professional in their mandatory, pre-licensure clinical training programme.

To examine the level of perceived professional competence of intern nurses trained at adult ICUs and its association with their intention to stay in the nursing profession, work stress and work satisfaction.

This cross-sectional online survey involved 960 intern nurses in 16 adult ICUs across four university hospitals in Egypt. Perceived professional competence was assessed using the 35-item Nurse Professional Competence Scale-Short Form. Intention to stay, work stress and work satisfaction were assessed using a single item each. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed.

The response rate was 94.38%. About a third of the participants were self-reported incompetent, 68.4% were potential leavers, 44.3% had high work stress, and 55.8% had low work satisfaction. All self-reported incompetent intern nurses were potential leavers. Self-reported competent intern nurses were significantly less stressed and more satisfied. Adjusted for sex, ICU work experience before the internship year, and marital status, self-reported competency is a positive predictor of low work stress and moderate-to-high satisfaction (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: 2.488 [1.836-3.373] and 9.132 [6.299-13.240], respectively).

Intern nurses' intention to stay in the profession, work stress and work satisfaction are strongly related to their perceived competency.

Improving nurses' competency is necessary to improve not only patient care and safety but also nurses' satisfaction and retention and decrease their work stress. Competency-based clinical learning environments and mentorship would help interns develop their professional competency, cope with work stress and achieve higher job satisfaction, which would ultimately enhance their retention.