Task Profiles of Nurses in Germany With a Bachelor's Degree

Abstract

Since more than ten years, German universities have been offering courses that enable students to become qualified professional nurses but without an academic degree or to acquire an academic bachelor's degree in nursing. However, there is still a lack of clarity regarding the task profiles of professionally qualified nursing professionals without an academic degree and of those nursing professionals with a bachelor's or master's degree. In order to identify task profiles for nurses with a bachelor's degree, a multi-stage literature search was first conducted as well as a content-analytical evaluation of the literature found. The results were then analyzed in terms of the level of qualification required for this purpose, and the tasks thus identified for the bachelor's level were reviewed and adjusted using three focus groups. The study concluded that the literature often recommended tasks that were not skill-appropriate. Moreover, there was a tendency to suggest tasks in indirect care. Through the study, five tasks for direct care and five tasks for indirect care were identified. In direct nursing, nursing process control/design in highly complex nursing situations was ranked first on a scientific basis. Based on the difficulties in determining appropriate tasks in direct nursing, it is concluded that the indicators for highly complex nursing situations need further operationalization. In addition, the practical parts of the study degree course must be better prepared than before with regard to the tasks that the graduates need to take on later.