Abstract
This study aimed to develop a way to measure practical competences for public health nurses working for local governments, and to establish systematic continuing education programs based on actual competence requirements. Public health nurses working for local governments in four prefectures were provided with self-administrated questionnaires by mail. A total of 3,024 questionnaires were delivered and the 1,614 responses were analyzed. Practical competence for public health nurses involved two factors : "Interpersonal health care competence" (IHCC) and "Community health care and administrative competence" (CHCAC). IHCC included individual and family support and means of group support. CHCAC included community activities, policy-making, and administrative and educational performance. For reliability, they had Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.97 (total) and 0.96 for IHCC of CHCAC respectively. For criterion-related validity IHCC had a correlation coefficient of 0.54 and CHCAC one of showed 0.63. Therefore it was concluded that measuring practical competence for public health nurses had reliability and validity.
