Skills required for nursing practice are:
Cognitive skills: These pertain to the knowledge that the nurse has, and its application in carrying out the nursing process and in providing comprehensive care while working with various age groups e.g. infants, children, adolescents, as well as, mature, geriatric, and senescent people.
The component activities of the nursing process (the essence of how a registered nurse delivers care) are:
- Assessment of the patient and identification of his needs,
- Establishment of priorities and planning for the necessary care,
- Implementation of the care plan;
- Recording and
- Evaluation of the intervening measures.
Each step is part of an ongoing process and, as such, requires change, necessitating frequent reassessments.
Technical skills: learned through education and practice. E.g. monitoring of vital signs, administration of medicine, provision of fluid, nutrients, hygienic care and comfort, and doing surgical dressings are only a few of the many manual skills performed by the nurse.
Interpersonal skills; the nurse needs to have a good understanding of human behavior, adaptation mechanisms, an individual’s values, belief systems and attitudes, and cultural influences. The nurse-patient relationship is of great importance in all phases of nursing. The relationship that is established influences all the nurse does with and for the patient, and can profoundly affect the quality and effectiveness of the service and the final outcome of the patient’s recovery and rehabilitation.
