Perceptions of perioperative nursing competence: a cross-country comparison.

Background: Throughout many countries, professional bodies rely on yearly self-assessment of competence for ongoing registration; therefore, nursing competence is pivotal to safe clinical practice. Our aim was to describe and compare perioperative nurses' perceptions of competence in four countries, while examining the effect of specialist education and years of experience in the operating room.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of cross-sectional surveys from four countries including; Australia, Canada, Scotland, and Sweden.