Clinical Skills of Graduated Nurses

Abstract

Nursing schools are facing an increasing challenge in providing students with high-quality education and important clinical skills so that they can practice as graduates. According to several research, graduate nurses believe they are underprepared with insufficient skill levels to operate in the real world of clinical practice. Nurses are the most numerous members of the healthcare workforce, and their clinical abilities have a direct impact on the quality, safety, and efficiency of their nursing practice for all patients. Clinical skills relate to any type of nursing care that has a measurable impact on clinical outcomes, and they encompass technical, non-technical, and cognitive abilities, such as clinical assessments, coordination, and communication, as well as decision-making abilities. Designing and implementing learning activities that allow students to successfully enhance their clinical abilities while simultaneously including patient safety principles is a significant problem in nursing education. However, these concerns must be balanced against health systems' and the profession's need for new nurses to be ready to hit the ground running right after graduation. New graduate nurses with less than one year of clinical practice experience can execute regular patient care activities employing technical, non-technical, and cognitive abilities if they have essential clinical competencies. New graduate nurses frequently struggle to write nurse notes, lack competency in nursing assessments, and are unable to forecast patient symptoms or adjust evaluations in response to current patient symptoms. Second, they lack intravenous administration, discharge procedures, basic life support, and cardiac resuscitation measures. Then there are issues with anxiety. Temperamental coworkers and emotions of failure induced by working inefficiently and having trouble adjusting to the work environment were found to have a detrimental impact on fresher nurses' work performance. Finally, they exhibit leadership and communication issues, including a lack of confidence in their ability to perform as a nurse who must deliver information to coworkers and a poor response to unforeseen challenges. Fundamental skills, health promotion and disease prevention skills, rehabilitation skills, and abilities in specific areas are the important clinical skills components that new nurses should possess upon entering hospital practice. These elements can help shape nursing interventions and curricula in Thailand to prepare graduates for work in a variety of settings, as well as the skills taught in various programmes in Thailand and worldwide. In order to attain patient safety and nursing care quality, essential clinical skills components are needed to drive nursing practice and nursing education. Moreover, components of essential clinical skills of graduate nurses could provide a way to assess and recruit graduate nurses with sufficient clinical skills and help administrations to better manage the nursing workforce for complicated client populations. Evidence related to the significance of graduate nurses’ essential clinical skills for clients, healthcare organizations, and healthcare systems could then be further identified, which could be used to guide future professional development initiatives for the nursing profession.