Traducción y validación de la Nurse Competence Scale para la población portuguesa.Un estudio en hospitales portugueses

Abstract

The interest in nurses� competences has been growing significantly as a result of the development of the profession, the quality of care, and patient safety. Understanding and analyzing the concept of competence is a difficult task, given the diversity of approaches suggested in the available literature. The main focus of this study is to show the relevance and importance of the nurses� professional competences and its specific objectives are to translate, adapt and validate the Nurse Competence Scale (NCS) for the Portuguese population; to identify the level of professional competence of Portuguese nurses; to identify the association between sociodemographic and professional variables and the dimensions of the Nurse Competence Scale; and to determine the professional competences of nurses to identify areas of professional development and training needs. To accomplish the abovementioned objectives, a descriptive-correlational study was conducted based on a quantitative design and a methodological approach. The sample consisted of 1164 nurses working in mainland Portugal and in the Autonomous Regions, with a view to ensuring greater representativeness. The results confirm the adequacy and validity of the instrument used to assess the construct under study. We found that nurses perceive their professional competence as being high, that gender is a differentiating variable in some dimensions of competence, and that age, specialized training in nursing, length of professional experience, the workplace and the geographical area are variables that influence the level of professional competence of nurses.