Clinical Competence and Its Related Factors in Iranian Nurses: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Clinical competence is the essence of the nursing profession that develops the quality of nursing care. The present study aims to investigate the clinical competence of Iranian nurses and the factors affecting it. Methods: This is a systematic review that was conducted in 2022 by searching for articles in Persian or English in Web of Science, SID, Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed databases without time limit. The used keywords were “clinical competency”, “nurse”, “Iran” in both Persian and English. The selected articles were cross-sectional, case-control, cohort and interventional studies that were conducted on Iranian nurses. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklists were used to evaluate the quality of articles. Finally, out of 3757 articles, 46 eligible articles were reviewed. Results: In the studies, the clinical competence of nurses was at good and higher level based on the self-reports, while it was at moderate level according to head nurses. Some demographic factors, educational factors, working conditions, level of satisfaction, individual characteristics, organizational factors, motivational factor, and psychological factors were significantly associated with clinical competence. Conclusion: The clinical competence of Iranian nurses is at moderate to higher level. Paying attention to the factors affecting it can lead to the improvement of their clinical competence.