New Graduate Nurses’ Developmental Trajectories for Capability Beliefs Concerning Core Competencies for Healthcare Professionals: A National Cohort Study on Patient-Centered Care, Teamwork, and Evidence-based Practice

Abstract

Background This study aimed to describe the developmental trajectories of registered nurses’ capability beliefs during their first 3 years of practice. The focus was on three core competencies for health professionals—patient‐centered care, teamwork, and evidence‐based practice.

Methods A national cohort of registered nurses (n = 1,205) was recruited during their nursing education and subsequently surveyed yearly during the first 3 years of working life. The survey included 16 items on capability beliefs divided into three subscales for the assessment of patient‐centered care, teamwork, and evidence‐based practice, and the data were analyzed with linear latent growth modeling.

Results The nurses’ capability beliefs for patient‐centered care increased over the three first years of working life, their capability beliefs for evidence‐based practice were stable over the 3 years, and their capability beliefs for teamwork showed a downward trend.

Linking Evidence to Action Through collaboration between nursing education and clinical practice, the transition to work life could be supported and competence development in newly graduated nurses could be enhanced to help them master the core competencies. Future research should focus on determining which factors impact the development of capability beliefs in new nurses and how these factors can be developed by testing interventions.