Nurses' clinical competence in psychiatric wards of selected hospital of University of Behzisti & Tavanbakhshi, 2018-2019

Background: Clinical competence in nursing profession has a unique position. The quality of care in the psychiatric wards, which include patients with special conditions, is important. Hence, nurses of these departments must have high clinical competency. The aim of this study was to determine the clinical competency of nurses working in psychiatric wards. Materials and methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 210 nurses working in psychiatric wards of selected hospitals of the University of Behzisti and Tavanbakhshi Sciences were selected by simple random sampling. After completing the demographic questionnaire, clinical function of nurses was assessed by a checklist of clinical competence scale in CCMHN psychiatric nurses. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were used in SPSS 21 software. Results: Clinical competence was in a good level among 70.9% of clinical nurses. There was a significant association between work experience and clinical competency, work shift, and clinical competency, and overtime and clinical competence (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results showed that the clinical competence of the nurses is desirable and there is a need for planning for its development. However, the need to plan work hours and avoid overtime in nurses, as well as the appropriate distribution of personnel based on work experience and constant staff shift can help to balance and improve the clinical competence of nurses.