Newly qualified primary care nurses’ preparedness to make sound clinical judgements in practice

Newly qualified primary care nurses’ preparedness to make sound clinical judgements in practice

Background: The public health sector in South Africa provides care to more than 40 million people, with primary health care (PHC) clinics acting as most patients’ first contact with healthcare services; 80% of patients are treated by primary care nurses. Primary care nurses’ poor clinical judgment c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curationis (Pretoria) Vol. 47; no. 1; pp. e1 - e12
Main Authors: Ndlela, Mavis, Downing, Charlené
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Pretoria African Online Scientific Information Systems (Pty) Ltd t/a AOSIS 03-10-2024
AOSIS (Pty) Ltd
AOSIS
Subjects:
Care and treatment
clinical judgement
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Data collection
Disease
Evidence-based medicine
Evidence-based nursing
Health care industry
Health services
Knowledge
Medical diagnosis
Municipalities
newly qualified
Nurse specialists
Nurses
Original Research
Patients
Pilot projects
preparedness
Primary care
primary health care
Primary nursing
quantitative research
Skills
Trauma
South Africa
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Summary:Background: The public health sector in South Africa provides care to more than 40 million people, with primary health care (PHC) clinics acting as most patients’ first contact with healthcare services; 80% of patients are treated by primary care nurses. Primary care nurses’ poor clinical judgment can result in poor patient care, complications and death. However, newly qualified primary care (NQPC) nurses’ preparedness for making sound clinical judgements in practice has not been evaluated in Gauteng province, South Africa.Objectives: To determine NQPC nurses’ level of preparedness in making sound clinical judgements in practice.Method: A quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive design was used. The target population was NQPC nurses. A census method was used to select all NQPC nurses in public PHC facilities in three health districts of Gauteng. The sample size comprised 77 NQPC nurses, and data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire.Results: The findings indicated that 83% of NQPC nurses were able to notice salient changes in patients’ conditions, 43% were able to correctly interpret the changes that were noticed, but only 42% prioritised the correct patient care.Conclusion: The results reflect that 50.2% of the NQPC nurses in public PHC facilities in the three districts in Gauteng were functioning at exemplary levels.Contribution: This article highlighted NQPC nurses’ level of preparedness to make sound clinical judgements within a year after qualifying.
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ISSN:0379-8577
2223-6279
2223-6279
DOI:10.4102/curationis.v47i1.2567