Clinical Competence and Its Related Factors of Nurses in Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

Introduction: Clinical competence of nurses working in the neonatal intensive care units together with advancements in medical science and technology increased the survival rate of newborns that need specialized care. To ensure the quality of care and provide the safety of patients, evaluating the clinical competence of nurses seems necessary. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical competence of nurses in the neonatal intensive care units. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 117 nurses working in the neonatal intensive care units of the hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences were selected by census method. The research tool was Development of Competency Inventory for Registered Nurses questionnaire which completed by self-assessment. The mean clinical competence scores of participants categorized into 3 levels: weak: <225, moderate: 225-273 and good: >273. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 13 using the Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The highest levels of competence were related to critical thinking and research attitude and interpersonal relationships, and the lowest level was related to training and mentoring. There was a direct statistically significant relationship between marital status, employment status, level of interest in working in the neonatal intensive-care units and the clinical competence of nurses. Conclusion: Since the clinical competence of nurses in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units is vital, some variables such as interest in the nursing profession, employment status, the neonatal intensive theoretical and practical training courses and the amount of overtime working hours should be taken into consideration.

Nurses awareness of patients rights in a teaching hospital.

Patients' rights observance is one of the effective measures of patients' satisfaction of health care services. We performed this study at the aim of evaluation of nurses' awareness of patients' rights in a teaching hospital in Tehran. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2010. In this study 156 nurses were randomly selected. Two-part questionnaire was used for data collection. The validity and reliability of questionnaire was determined and then it was distributed between subjects. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 15 using descriptive and inferential statistics. Our results showed that %58.33, %39.10 and % 2.56 of nurses have good, medium, and poor levels of awareness respectively. We observed a significant relationship between nurses awareness and work experience (P=0.008) and concurrent work in public and private hospitals (P=0.01). The most of the nurses (%95.51) were aware of "right to privacy protection and ensure confidentiality of information" and the least of them (%33.97) were aware of "right to receiving necessary information about the health care providers, the rate of tariff and insurance coverage". According to our survey it is concluded that implementation of Patients' Right Charter in this hospital is accompanied by some limitations which necessitates promotion of the nurses' awareness about patients' rights. Taken together in order to enhance nurses' awareness special measures and strategies should be considered.