The Importance and Impact of Nursing Informatics Competencies for Baccalaureate Nursing Students and Registered Nurses

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine and compare the importance of informatics competencies for baccalaureate nursing students and registered nurses. Method: Qualitative descriptive study design focused with convenience sampling technique. Data were collected on December2015 through a written survey distributed and completed by 70 nursing students and 50 nurses from the G’city. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, x 2 -test, ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient Results: Survey scores indicated that Nursing students were competent in informatics than nurses. Comparison of competency scores revealed that nursing students and Nurses differ significantly in overall informatics competency. This difference may reflect that students’ perceived and lacked competence in two areas, “informatics skills” and “Clinical informatics role. Also nurses’ differ in levels of clinical nursing experience with informatics skills and the learning format. Conclusion: These findings provide insight about the strengths and weakness of the informatics competencies of nursing students and nurses. Also indicates that participants had a deficit in informatics skills. It is important to establish nursing informatics skills for nursing students and nurses by continuing education, training and classroom teaching with practical classes. Also need to integrate IT based NI into the nursing theory and practical session in order to improve Nursing Informatics skills.