The Changing Role Of The Nurse Professional In Health Care

Abstract

Competence development is an integral part of nursing education and sets a benchmark in practice and patient safety. The main purpose of the study is to identify the competencies that are prerequisite in nursing education and the importance of competence development in their ongoing profession. This narrows down to three main questions, firstly the competencies which are necessary among graduating nurses in Europe are analyzed. Secondly the focus is on the competencies required by the nurses in 2025 and the last question looks into the diversified roles in nursing career. Peplau’s theory of Interpersonal Relations and Jean Watson’s theory of Human Caring have been used as a theoretical framework for the study. The methodology of the study was a literature review and 20 full scholarly articles were collected from scientific databases of EBSCO, Pubmed, and ScienceDirect. The articles were analyzed and coded using Graneheim and Lundman qualitative content analysis in nursing research. The data from the analysis has identified competencies that are required for the graduating nurses in European Union. The findings of the study show that these competencies are a part of their current curriculum and registered nurse require continuous nursing education programmes to be competent in their practice. Nurses in the future have to be competent in informatics and technology as patient care is mostly dependent on machines. In conclusion, nursing roles have been diversified allowing them to practice independently and take on challenging roles with care and safety. Competencies like communication, teamwork, and evidence-based practice promote patient safety and quality of nursing care among graduating nurses.