A study on the job performance, importance, and educational needs of clinical practice nurses in tertiary hospitals

Purpose: This study analyzed the job performance and importance of clinical practice nurses (CPN) and aimed to identify their educational needs. Methods: A total of 162 work items across three tasks categories were identified by reviewing guidelines from the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare and analyzing previous studies on CPN tasks. CPN employed at tertiary hospitals were recruited from the largest online community of Korean nurses. The frequency of performance and importance of each task were assessed in a five-point Likert scales. Educational needs for each task were calculated using the equation from Borich’s needs-assessment model. Importance-performance analysis was used to analyze job education improvement strategies. Results: Among 105 CPN participants, only 45.7% of CPN thought they were trained efficiently for their current work. In the patient care task, assessment and surgery-related areas measured highest in performance and importance, respectively. Educational needs were highest for critical care in patient care and education/research tasks, although these tasks were evaluated as low in performance and importance. Among the top 20 works with high educational needs, cardiopulmonary resuscitation in emergencies, training a new CPN, arterial blood sampling, preoperative management, suturing, and collaborative work were identified with high priority for improvement. Conclusion: Systematic training programs are needed for CPN, especially in education/research tasks and critical care management. A customized education system should be established based on the educational needs of each field are different. Keywords: Nurse specialists, Hospital nursing staff, Job