Article Summary - Terry, Stirling, Bull & Fassett (2017), An overview of the ways nurses

understand and utilise the existing Australian Competency Standards for Registered Nurses.
Collegian.

This article is about understanding and implication of the nursing standards. This systematic
review highlights the ways nurses understand and utilize the Australian National Competency
Standards for registered nurses for over two decades in determining the competency of clinical
practice. The aim of the study was to identify the ability of RNs to interpret the Standards and
how these can be adapted to their own work environment along with how RNs use the
Standards in their everyday working environment towards patients, the patient’s family,
colleagues and other allied professionals.
Study is based on a two-phase data collection method through questionnaires. The study
covered both quantitative and qualitative data. Qualitative data were prepared using open
ended questionnaire, which were transcribed into Excel to make quantitative questionnaire
data. The result from these data were integrated to develop semi-structured interview
questions. The resulting data from questionnaire and semi-structured interview then emerged
with different themes. The study group consist of graduate nurse, preceptor and academic or
clinical teacher.
This result provides valuable insights into challenges with the current standards and are useful
for the current review and development of the new standards of the practice. While, the article
is submitted on 2015 and the publication date is 2017 and the NMBA standards were updated
in 2016. This put the validity of the article into question. The result of the study is important as
it has given the link between competence, safety and quality. In terms of the effectiveness of
the measure, it has provided insight into an urgent review of the standards and lack of
knowledge regarding the using of standards as well as various challenges regarding the current
standards. However,this study lacks generalization of the study and the level of competence
determined was not clear.