Skill of care in nursing students of a private university in the south of Chile

Abstract

Introduction. The ability of care is the set of skills and capacity that an individual has to carry out actions that help others to grow or value their own being. During the formative years, students must learn and enhance their care practices so when the time comes, they can deliver them professionally. The main objective was to estimate the relation between care ability and level of academic training in students from the second to fourth year of the nursing career at Santo Tomás University, Los Angeles, Chile, in 2017. Material and Methods. quantitative research of Correlational and cross-sectional design, with a sample of 222 students, to whom "Inventory of Skill of Care" (CAI) was applied by its acronym in English, this considers three factors: Disposition of help, Appreciation for the experience of another and Self-conidence. The instrument was validated in 2016 and is reliable for Chilean students. Results. The students have an average of 22.8 years, most of them are between 18 and 27 years old (93%), female (79%), attending third and fourth year (63%). Among the students of the diferent levels of training, there are no signiicant diferences in care ability, however, the highest score was presented in the factor "appreciation for the experience of another". Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that the care ability does not change with the theoretical-practical learning of the discipline and that sex and age of the sample are not related to it either.