The Effect of New Nurses' Clinical Competence on Career Adaptation

BackgroundNew nurses need a certain period of time to adapt to the organization due to a lack of clinical competence, and also immaturity in social skill. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of new nurses clinical competence on career adaptation in order to use the results as basic information for developing education programs to improve their adaptability in clinical practice. MethodThis study employed a descriptive survey to investigate the clinical competence and the career adaptability of new nurses working in a general hospital. The study subjects were 61 new nurses with less than one year of work experience and data was collected from June, 2018 to July, 2019. Data was analyzed using frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearsons correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis. ResultsOn average, the study subjects have worked for 11.33{+/-}1.51 months. In this study, the average clinical competence of new nurses was 2.21{+/-}0.61, and career adaptability was 3.00{+/-}0.39. The clinical competence of new nurses was positively correlated with career adaptability (r=.453, p<.001). Among the sub-categories of clinical competence, developing professional and legal implementation were found to affect career adaptability (t=2.24, p=.030). ConclusionThe clinical competence of the new nurses was shown to positively affect their career adaptability, and it was confirmed that developing professional and legal implementation in the subcategories of clinical competence affected the career adaptability of the new nurses. Thus, it is necessary to establish a program that provides support for new nurses to enable them to build professional identities that they can be proud of.