An analysis of the relationship between resilience and clinical competence in nurses: A descriptive-correlational study

Abstract

Objective: Resilience and clinical competence are two important components of providing nursing care to patients. The goal was to determine the correlation between clinical competence and resilience in the nurses at Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Methods: This descriptive and correlational study was conducted in 2019 and 2020. A total of 424 nurses working in the intensive care units and general wards of six hospitals affiliated with Babol University of Medical Sciences were selected using the stratified sampling technique. Liu’s Nursing Clinical Competence Questionnaire was used to assess the clinical competence of the nurses, and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was used to assess the nurses’ resilience. The descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, t-test, and one-way ANOVA methods were used in data analyses. Results: The mean score on the seven dimensions of clinical competence was high (174.86±24.19). The nurses had the highest mean scores on “clinical care” and “management and leadership” dimensions (4.77±31.50 and 4.7±28.61, respectively). They also had the lowest mean scores on the “mentoring and teaching” and “professional progress” dimensions (3.53±19.10, 3.41±19.14, respectively). The mean±standard deviation of the nurses’ resilience score was 73.36±12.66. The results of Pearson’s correlation test indicated a positive significant relationship between all clinical competence dimensions and nurses’ resilience (p<0.001, r=0.493). Conclusion: Given the strong relationship between resilience and clinical competence, this study suggests that nursing managers should carry out proper planning to improve the resilience of nurses as well as enhancing their clinical competence.

Keywords

• clinical competence
• resilience
• nurse