Clinical Practice Competence and Its Associated Factors Among Generic Nursing Students Learning at Public Universities: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Introduction: One of the global strategic direction and policy priorities in 2021 through 2025 is preservice education of nurses. Even though, quality education is the foundation to produce competent health workers, ensuring the competence of the health professionals is as imperative as maximizing their number. This study aims to fill the literature gap among nursing students in public universities.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence of clinical practice competence and its associated factors among graduating BSc nursing students in public universities from July 15 to August 15, 2022.

Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was carried out in randomly selected public universities in eastern Ethiopia. A total of 143 students were systematically selected to fill out the questionnaire through multistage sampling. Frequency, mean, and standard deviations of independent variables and proportion of clinical practice competence were analyzed using descriptive statistics. AOR with a p-value of <.05 was used to declare a significant association.

Results: The study found that 69 (53.1%) of study participants were clinically competent. Students with good clinical instructors [AOR: 3.79, 95%CI: 1.56-9.21], learning in a conducive clinical setting [AOR: 3.59, 95%CI: 1.26-10.23] and assessed using measurable methods [AOR: 3.77, 95%CI: 1.53-9.30] were significantly associated.

Conclusion: In this study, almost one in two of the students was clinically incompetent. Respective stakeholders could enhance students' competence by monitoring and evaluating students during clinical practice, creating favorable learning settings, and developing comprehensive assessment methods.