Nurses' Informatics Competency Assessment Of Health Information System Usage And Its Associated Factors

Abstract

Background: Nurses' informatics competencies are nurses' professional requirements to guarantee the quality of patient care and affect nurses' use of health information systems. Nursing informatics (NI) competency is a required core competency for high-quality care in digitally enabled healthcare environments. Given the increasing dependence on digital health in clinical care settings, it becomes crucial to evaluate the NI competency of nurses to ensure the seamless integration and effective utilization of digital health in their clinical practice. The study aimed: To investigate the level of NI competency and explore its associated factors among clinical care nurses. Methods: A cross-sectional design was conducted for this study, involving a total of 409 clinical care nurses from 302 hospitals in KSA. Anonymous data were collected through a self-designed socio-demographic questionnaire, the Nursing Informatics Competency Scale (NICS) and the Innovative Self-Efficacy Scale. Results The total score of the NICS was 12[1]9.19 ± 22.02, which indicated that clinical care nurses had a moderate level of NI competency. There was a positive correlation between innovative self-efficacy and NI competency (r = 0.602, P < 0.01). The hospital level and innovative self-efficacy were identified as statistically significant factors influencing nurses’ NI competency based on multiple linear regression analysis results. These associated factors could explain 35.1% of the difference in NI competency. Conclusions This study found that clinical care nurses exhibited moderate levels of NI competency and identified the hospital level and innovative self-efficacy as associated factors of nurses’ NI competency. Measures such as developing supported strategies, including targeted NI training programs by nursing education managers of primary-level hospitals and creating a positive culture of innovation by healthcare institutions can be considered to improve the level of NI competency among clinical care nurses.