Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal

Background and Objectives: The high clinical competency of Critical Care Nurses (CCNs) is required, as the quality of nursing care in critical care units (CCUs) with critically ill patients is extremely important. This study was conducted to compare CCNs' clinical competency using self-assessment method and assessment by their Head nurses.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 148 CCNs who were included in the study in a period of six months (June -November 2014), in the hospitals of the Zanjan university of medical sciences. Data was collected using Nurse Competency Scale (NCS) which assesses 63 skills in seven different domains. The Cohen's kappa coefficient was used to compare the agreement between the clinical competency and the use of skills in CCNs and their head nurses.

Results: The inter-rater agreement was poor between the nurses and their Head nurses in the evaluation of the clinical competency, and in two aspects was very poor. The "Quality assurance" (0.098) and the" Helping Role" (0.373) domains had the lowest and the highest level of agreement, respectively. The inter-rater agreement of the use of skills by nurses was reported very poor in all domains.

Conclusion: The current study revealed that there is no agreement between the evaluation of CCNs' clinical competency by own nurses and their head nurses indicating these two methods are not interchangeable.