TITLE:
Competency Assessment and Factors Associated with It among Health Professionals at Debre Birhan Health Science College
AUTHORS:
Awraris Hailu, Henok Ditta, Zebideru Zewdie
KEYWORDS:
Competency, Quality Education, College, Health Professionals
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.4 No.7,
June
9,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Background:
Competency assessment has a key role in the assurance of quality professionals
in every discipline. Competency assessment is a method by which we can verify
that our employees are competent to perform tasks timely. To derive the
greatest benefit from the application of competency assessment in the health
professionals, we must be sure that we are addressing areas where our efforts are
utilized to optimize the patient care. There is no research done on the competency
assessment so far except the report send by Technical Vocational and
Educational Training. Objectives: To assess knowledge, attitude and practice of
health professionals towards competency assessment and factors were associated
with competencies at Debre Birhan Health Science College, 2013. Methods: A
facility based cross sectional study was conducted using interview technique.
Study participants were all students taking competency assessment in all departments
at Debre Berhan Health Science College in two rounds. The percentage of
participants who were competent was computed. Factors associated with
competency were assessed using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression.
Results: Among the total participants (n = 287), (57.8 percent) were female.
Among the (n = 287) study participants, 226 (78.7%) were competent. Of these,
88.5% of the candidates were learned at governmental institution. Predictors of
competency were department of the respondent AOR [95%]; 0.05 [0.01, 0.45],
expectation of the results [AOR (95% CI) = 0.13 (0.02, 0.85)], number of
competency taken [AOR (95% CI) = 0.11 (0.01, 0.88)] and candidates’ knowledge of their right and obligations AOR [95%]; 3.7 [1.3,
10.3]. Conclusions: Significant numbers of candidates were not yet competent
due to various factors at different level. Therefore, comprehensive work should
be done on the instructors, students and the center to make the candidates
competent.