Required competency of inexperienced public health nurses who work at prefectures in Japan: Required competency of public health nurses compared to clerical officers

Public health nurses (PHNs) have recently been decentralized, and they are developing partnerships with clerical officers who they work with. It is important that there is consensus about career development between PHNs and clerical officers when inexperienced PHNs acquire competency. Moreover, it is necessary to consider the content of their basic education. The purpose of this study was to clarify the competency required for inexperienced PHNs who work at prefectures in Japan. Subjects were 1,967 PHNs and 935 clerical officers with 10 or more years of experience working in prefectures and municipalities. Self-administered questionnaires were provided by mail. A total of 2,902 questionnaires were delivered and 1,283 (44.2%) responses were obtained, of which 1,137 (39.2%) were analyzed. The level of required competency of PHNs according to years of experience (new graduate, 5 years experience) was described based on 10 years of experience, and competencies were measured on a 4-point scale. Content and level of required competency of PHNs were evaluated prior to the investigation, as a result they were categorized into five areas of 40 items. Data analysis was by two comparisons of PHNs and clerical officers, and used the Mann–Whitney U-test. The required competency of PHNs who worked in a prefecture was: 1) a new graduate should be able to understand and do this activity with assistance, 2) PHNs with 5 years experience should be able to do this activity with or without assistance. As a result of two comparisons of PHNs and clerical officers, clerical officers expected competency at a high level on community health care competency, policy-making competency, and administrative competency of inexperienced PHNs (P < 0.05). We consider that it is important for PHNs to be able to prove their competency level to officials, and, in addition, we should understand that PHNs are expected to exercise diverse competency. We consider that a basic educational content on policy-making competency and administrative competency is important in future, and it needs to be conducted in a graduate school.