ABSTRACT
Introduction: nursing as a clinical discipline is developing daily in emergency wards and health care system managers should assess and prioritize clinical competence indicators in these wards continuously. Lack of clear clinical competence indicators challenges evaluation
Objective: this study aimed to determine general clinical competence indicators from nurses' viewpoint working in emergency wards
Methods: this is an assessment study using Delphi method in three phases: the first phase [determine the General Clinical competence indicators], Phase II [classifying general clinical competence indicators by members of the expert panel] third phase [prioritizing general clinical competence indicators using exploratory factor analysis] through which 710 nurses were chosen by convenience random sampling working in emergency wards affiliated to Guilan Therapeutic Educational Centers during a two month period. Finally, exploratory factor analysis was used
Results: in prioritizing phase of general clinical competence indicators, five factors statements were classified by the expert panel and provided a structured model in three domains which were divided as communication [10 items], disaster and emergency management [8 items] and personality characteristics [12 items]
Conclusion: a present alternative to reduce the gap between theory and practice in nursing is through determination and prioritization of clinical competence criteria in emergency wards. Factor analysis can be used to prioritize these indicators. Further research in health care system is ed in order to achieve reliable and valid instrument