Competency in Operating Room Nursing: A Scoping Review

INTRODUCTION: One of the most important indicators of patient safety and professional practice standards is operating room nursing competency. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of the literature on operating room nurse competency, influencing factors, and evaluation.
METHODS: The study was conducted according to the PRISMA-ScR criteria. The searches were conducted using CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PUBMED, Scopus and ProQuest, Ulakbim electronic databases, and the reference lists were completed after the literature review. Two researchers used the systematic review method to choose the studies that would be included. Finally, tables were prepared and reported for data extraction and analysis by summarising and combining the data.
RESULTS: This review includes research articles between 2006 and 2019 that meet the inclusion criteria. Nineteen studies, seven of which were methodological, five quantitative, five qualitative, and two mixed methods, were examined. Studies are mainly from Australia. Operating room nursing competency encompasses both technical and nontechnical areas. It was determined that the technical areas consist of fundamental nursing knowledge and skills specific to the operating room, while the nontechnical competence areas include social, affective, and cognitive skills that ensure safe and effective performance. It has been shown that the most critical factors influencing competence are education and experience, and five instruments have been developed to measure and evaluate.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In this study, it was concluded that the technical and nontechnical areas of operating room nursing competency and the influencing factors should be investigated more comprehensively and in more detail. Implicit competence, composed of personality and self-motivation dimensions, should be examined more closely along these lines. The establishment of national and international standards for developing competency assessment instruments is also an essential requirement.