ABSTRACT
Background@#A key success to achieve the highest potential in the nursing profession is the clinical nurse leaders (CNL) who are likely to have key roles for improving quality of patient care, but nothing published about this topic in the Lao PDR.@*Objective@#To evaluate the duties, leadership roles and to develop nursing technical leadership roles in central hospitals, Vientiane Capital.@*Methodology@#The study is action research conducted between 12/2019 - 6/2020, with 3 phases (1) preparation phase, (2) implementation-1 phase, and (3) implementation-2 phase (development of CNL roles.@*Results@#One hundred and eleven clinical nurse leaders from five central hospitals in Vientiane Capital participated in the study of which 92% were female; aged between 30-39 years (50%), and most of them worked in the Internal Medicine departments and their working experience ranged from 10-19 years (40.5%). About thirty-nine percent of the participants were mid-level nurses. The overall performance score for CNL roles was moderate with a mean of 3.2/5. The performance score was significantly different between levels of education of the nurses (for example between those who were auxiliary nurses and those who held the bachelor degree by training) with p-value <0.05. @*Conclusion@#The role of clinical nurse leaders in central hospitals evaluated systematically, traditionally and as routine work was not really satisfactory. The overall CNL performance was moderate and there remain some roles that need to be promoted particularly the research role.