The development and validation of a standardised eight-station OSCE for evidence for registration of undergraduate nursing students: A Delphi study

Background: Applied demonstrations of nursing skills prior to provision of nursing registration is an increasingly important focus of university nursing education. There is ampleevidence that the OSCE is an appropriate tool for assessing the competencies of nursing students, but the mode and content of OSCEs varies widely. Thus, for nationally basedregistration, there is a requirement to design a practical and comprehensive exam that can determine the clinical competence of nursing students that is appropriate and acceptable at a national level.Objectives: To develop and validate a set of OSCEs for use as a nationally applicable final exam of undergraduate nursing students’ clinical and professional competencies.Design: A modified Delphi study, informed by a systematic scoping review of relevant literature.Participants: Experts from various nursing groups and different cities across Iran participated in this study.Materials and Methods: A two-phase study was conducted. Initially, a scoping review was conducted to establish internationally agreed competences for graduating nursing students. These were included in an online questionnaire send to national experts to develop a validated and accepted nursing competency framework and implementation strategies. This was Round ۱ of a three-round modified Delphi study. A CVI was calculated, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the experts’ opinions. Results: An OSCE for final exam of undergraduate nursing students was developed and validated that includes nine competencies addressed in eight ۱۰-minute stations.Conclusion: A ‘best-practice’ OSCE evaluation system, benefitting from both international literature and the opinions of nation-wide experts was achieved. It reflected global procedures as well as the local conditions and Iranian expectations. The resultant knowledge can be used by nursing schools across the country. It can also be used to model equivalent development of locally relevant OSCEs in countries around the world.

Keywords:

Clinical competency , Objective structured clinical examination , Nursing , Delphi