The Role and Competencies or RNs in Care Homes v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The role and competencies for Registered Nurses working in care homes: A Delphi Study.
IRAS ID
193022
Contact name
Miriam Stanyon
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University Of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
Registered nurses (RNs) are often employed in care homes, however the role and competencies required for RNs working in this specialised context have not been established.
This study aims to gain expert consensus on the role description and the essential skills and competences for RNs working in care and nursing homes in order to develop a curriculum.
Round 1:
A review of research and grey literature will be completed to identify possible competencies related to nursing in care homes. Discussion of these competencies will then be the basis of the focus groups. Focus groups will comprise of approximately 5 groups of approximately 6 participants. These participants will be clinicians with experience of the care home sector, PPI representatives and care home stakeholders. The results of the literature review and focus groups will be synthesised under the supervision of other expert researchers to determine a limited number of headings to be used in the questionnaire rounds. Suitable experts will then be invited to take part in the questionnaire rounds.
Round 2:
Approximately 25 expert participants will rate the synthesised competencies from the first round by ranking their agreement with statements on the importance of these competencies. The rankings will be summarised and included in a repeat version of the questionnaire.
Round 3-4:
Participants will re-rank their agreement with each statement in the questionnaire, with the opportunity to change their score in view of the group's response. The re-rankings will be summarised and assessed for degree of consensus: if an acceptable degree of consensus is obtained the process may cease, with final results fed back to participants; if not, the third round is repeated.
A threshold for consensus of 70% will be established to allow for the exploration of different perspectives while increasing the likelihood of establishing consensus within 3 rounds.
Focus groups will be analysed qualitatively, using the constant comparative approach. Responses to the questionnaires (round 2-4) will be quantitatively analysed using descriptive statistics.A list of competencies, agreed upon by experts on which can be established a curriculum for the training of registered nurses working in care homes.REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
16/IEC08/0002
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jan 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion