Investigation of the competency and job performance of clinical nurses in general hospitals

Objective: To investigate the competency and job performance status of clinical nurses in general hospitals,analyze the correlation,and explore the influencing factors of job performance.Methods: Four hundred registered nurses working more than 1 year from 4 tertiary general hospitals in a city were investigated by cluster sampling questionnaire using the Questionnaire of Nurses' Competency and Scale of Nurses' Job Performance.Results: The average scores of the competency and job performance in clinical nurses were (3.70±0.47) and (4.02±0.54),respectively.The univariate analysis of variance indicated that the differences of the competency and job performance in different age,department,title,duty,nature of employment,work experience,initial education and marital status clinical nurses were statistically significant(P<0.05 to P<0.01).The results of pearson liner correlation analysis showed that the overall competency and 14 competent characteristics were positively correlated with the job performance and its 3 dimensions(P<0.01).Stepwise regression analysis showed that the important inflencing variables on the job performance of clinical nurses were the working year,moral responsibility,compassion and moral responsibility in turn(P<0.01).Conclusions: Clinical nurses' competency is one of the important influencing factor on job performance.Nursing managers should implemented the specific measure to the influencing factor of job performance,and cluture the needs of the competency of clinical nurses in order to further improve the job performance.