Objective Structured Clinical Examination–Emerging Trend in Nursing Profession

Assessment of clinical competence is an essential, mandatory requirement for health care profession. But it became a tough job for nurse educator as it poses several challenges in terms of objectivity and reliability. The OSCE which is the performance based method helps to overcome these challenges. This study was undertaken with the aim of assessing the knowledge, attitude and exploring the opinion towards OSCE among the nursing faculty by using mixed method. Knowledge on OSCE was assessed by using Structured Questionnaire with 15 items and attitude was assessed by using five point Likert scale with 10 items. Unstructured Questionnaire was formulated to explore an opinion. Non - Probability, Convenient sampling technique was used to select Thirty Nursing Faculty. Study findings shows that the Nursing Faculty have 40% Excellent knowledge, 47% of them have Adequate and 13% of them have inadequate knowledge and also it shows that 73% of them have positive attitude and 27% of them have negative attitude towards OSCE. Correlation between Knowledge and Attitude towards OSCE reveals that moderately negative correlation. Opinion on OSCE was explored and grouped under "Opinion on OSCE", "Client Care", "Clinical Evaluation", "Utilization of Resources" and "Difference between OSCE and Traditional method of Clinical Examination". The study recommends that the Nursing Faculty should develop positive Opinion and skill in preparing the students by using OSCE.