Abstract
M.Cur. (Nursing Education)
The competence of the newly qualified comprehensive diploma nurses has been a cause for concern to professional nurses in Swaziland. Once the diploma graduate nurses are deployed in the clinical health facilities, they tend not to display the expected competence when providing care to patients. This compromises the quality of care given to patients.
The purpose of the study is to explore and describe the expectations of professional nurses regarding the competence of the newly qualified comprehensive diploma nurses in Swaziland rural clinical health facilities, in order to formulate strategies to improve their competence and subsequently improve nursing practice in general.
A contextual, qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive research design was employed to explore the expectations of professional nurses regarding the competence of the newly qualified comprehensive diploma nurses in the Swaziland rural clinical facilities, thereby formulating strategies to improve practice. A purposive sampling method was used to select professional nurses in the rural clinical facilities of Swaziland who meet the inclusion criteria. The data was collected through focus group interviews. The focus group interviews were directed by the research questions.
Data was analysed using the open coding qualitative method of data analysis as described by Tesch (in Creswell, 2007: 154 – 156). This method of data analysis was applied to reduce data from interview transcriptions into themes and categories. Trustworthiness was ensured by using the four criteria described by Lincoln and Guba’s model (1985), namely: credibility; transferability; dependability; and confirmability.
Ethical considerations were in accordance with the Faculty of Health Science Committee for Academic Ethics (2005). The researcher obtained approval to conduct the study from the University Higher Degree and Ethics Committee, Scientific and Ethics Committee in Swaziland.