A Study of Nursing Manager Competencies at Chao Phraya Yommarat Hospital, Suphan Buri Province

Abstract

     Nurse managers play an important role in workforce management, quality oversight, and advancing nursing services in response to changes in healthcare systems. Assessing their competencies provides essential information for planning competency development appropriate to their roles and organizational context. This descriptive cross-sectional study aimed to examine the overall and domain-specific competency levels of nurse managers at Chao Phraya Yommarat Hospital, Suphan Buri Province. The study included the total population of 41 nurse managers, comprising head nurses and nursing group supervisors. The research instruments consisted of a personal data questionnaire and the 26-item Nurse Manager Competency Assessment developed by the Nursing Council of Thailand in 2025. The instrument demonstrated an Index of Item-Objective Congruence of 1.00 and an overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.95. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage.

     The results showed that the overall nurse manager competency was at a very high level (=3.24, SD=0.52). Among the nine competency domains, self-development had the highest mean score (=3.46, SD=0.57), followed by continuous quality improvement (=3.29, SD=0.57) and managerial leadership (=3.28, SD=0.60), respectively. In contrast, innovative nursing practice (=3.14, SD=0.55) and digital health technology and health literacy (=3.12, SD=0.60) had the lowest mean scores. These findings provide baseline information for planning nurse manager competency development appropriate to the organizational context.