COMPETENCIES OF NURSES IN ALBAY: AN ASSESSMENT

Abstract

Health service delivery in the country has evolved into dual delivery systems of public and private health service institutions. The nurses, as one of the health care service providers, need to posses competencies to deliver quality nursing care. Hence, the conduct of the study was deemed important to determine the competencies of nurses from Albay province and the factors that contributed to their competencies. The respondents consisted of 56 public health nurses with permanent position and have worked for at least a year; and 197 clients from the three city health and 15 municipal health offices in Albay. Descriptive research design was utilized using the 11 Key Responsibility Areas of the Philippine Nursing Curriculum in assessing the competencies of the nurses. Frequency counting, ranking and weighted mean were applied in the analysis of data. Results of the study revealed that the over-all self-rating of nurses from Albay was excellent. Clientele’s evaluation of the nurse’s comptencies was very satisfactory. According to 14% of the nurse respondents, their intellectual capacities contributed highly to their nursing competencies followed by relationship with co-workers (13%), and spiritual/moral values (12%). Financial aspect contributed the least (5%).