Abstract
BackgroundThe Swedish ambulance service has undergone major changes in recent decades due to advancements being made in medical and technical resources, professional competence, and patient care. Registered and specialist nurses share the same role, accountabilities, and responsibilities in the ambulance service, and their professional competence has not yet been evaluated. ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to investigate and compare self-reported professional competence among nurses working in the ambulance service and to explore associations between potentially predictive background factors and self-reported professional competence. MethodA cross-sectional study with a digital questionnaire was used for collecting data from 34 registered nurses and 71 specialist nurses. The Ambulance Nurse Competence Scale and the Research Utilization Questionnaire were used for data collection. ResultsSignificant differences were found among the nursing categories in terms of age, gender, education, and work experience. Prehospital emergency nurses reported the highest professional competence. Nurses with a master's degree did not report significantly higher professional competence than nurses with a bachelor's degree. ConclusionsThe findings indicated that there are differences in the professional competence of registered nurses and specialist nurses. Length of work experience in the ambulance service is an important factor associated with higher professional competence.
Highlights
In recent decades, the Swedish ambulance service has undergone major changes and developments regarding care that can be provided at the scene, during transportation, and to patients with time-critical conditions[1]
There is a shortage of studies describing and comparing professional competence among the different categories of nurses working in the Swedish ambulance service
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) defines the “nurse specialist” as nurses prepared beyond the level of general registered nurses without a specialisation (RNs) who are authorized to practice as specialists with advanced expertise in a specific branch of the nursing field[5]
Summary
The Swedish ambulance service has undergone major changes and developments regarding care that can be provided at the scene, during transportation, and to patients with time-critical conditions[1]. The Swedish ambulance service has employed prehospital emergency nurses (PENs) who have passed a one-year postgraduate programme to become specialist nurses in prehospital care. There is a shortage of studies describing and comparing professional competence among the different categories of nurses working in the Swedish ambulance service. The Swedish ambulance service has undergone major changes in recent decades due to advancements being made in medical and technical resources, professional competence, and patient care. The respondents were asked for background data: age, gender, education, academic degree, work experience as a registered nurse, and work experience in the ambulance service. Internal consistency measured with Cronbach’s alpha was above 0.70 for all competence areas except Leadership Management (0.64) and Leadership and Supervision (0.65)
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