Nursing Competence in Municipal Health Care Services-the NursComp study

Project summary

Health care services within the municipality sector account for almost a third of municipality’s overall operations and and has to be considered together with the needs of the municipality as a whole. The Coordination Reform (St.meld.nr. 47 2008-2009) is an important and appropriate reform. Many nurses experience that they have gained more varied and interesting tasks, but authorities have not built enough nursing homes, hired enough nurses and made necessary training to handle the new responsibilities in a satisfactory manner. Municipalities will take a significantly greater responsibility for delivering health care services to the population than they do today, even in areas we traditionally regard as specialist health risk. The municipalities' new role is demanding to the staff at the sector.

Work package I: To evaluate the competence level among nurses working in three municipalities within the county of Sogn og Fjordane and among students studying within different specialization areas in further education and on one master programme at Sogn og Fjordane University College. Inclusion criteria: Bachelor degree (nursing) and clinical experience of working as a nurse in the municipality. A comparative cross-sectional quantitative as well as a qualitative design is used in this work package

Work package II: To explore the content, quality and structure of current competence plans and future challenges according to national directives in the county of Sogn og Fjordane. In order to contribute to strengthen the quality of the services and the quality and relevance of the research it will be important to involve administrative managers within nursing homes and home health care at the county of Sogn og Fjordane. In this research study a qualitative research design will be used. The sample will consist of administrative managers (avdelingsleder) within healthcare services. Here we are going to use focus group interviews when interviewing administrative managers (6-10) from two municipalities within the county of Sogn og Fjordane (two focus group sessions in total).

Work package III: To explore the experiences of nurse competence and the challenges in the quality of health care services from a user perspective. In this research study a qualitative research design will be used.

Method

Mixed methods