Assessment of the non-technical skills of the nursing officers in the operating theatres of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka

Non-technical skills are social and cognitive skills that complement technical skills. As they contribute to safety and efficiency at the point of service delivery, their importance is increasing over technical skills. Operating theatres are high-risk settings in hospitals where the work depends heavily on the non-technical skills of the theatre team. This study aimed to assess the level of non-technical skills of the nursing officers in the operating theatres of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. A hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. The study explored three non-technical skills categories (i.e., communication and teamwork, task management, and situation awareness) under which there were nine elements based on the "Scrub Practitioners’ List of Intraoperative Non-Technical Skills (SPLINTS)” system. All the eligible operating theater nursing officers were included. Their level of knowledge and practices of the non-technical skills were assessed quantitatively using a self-administered questionnaire and a self-administered checklist with a scoring system with predetermined cutoff values on the expected level of knowledge (>60% of knowledge score) and level of practice (>3 practice score). Data were analyzed using “SPSS version-26 software”. A ‘satisfactory’ level of knowledge of non-technical skills with a knowledge score of 90.19% was observed. A ‘marginal’ level of practice with a practice score of 2.99 was observed. This denoted a practice gap in non-technical skills among the operating theatre nursing officers. A non-technical skills gap was evident in the practices of the operating theatre nursing officers of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. This study provided new knowledge on the existing non-technical skills gap in operating theatre nursing officers of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. It would be beneficial to explore the non-technical skills of nursing officers working in all settings, as non-technical skills are important not only in high-risk settings but also in routine work conditions.