New CD-rom aims to boost nurse careers.

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A COMPUTER based self-assessment tool has been developed by academics to help primary care nurses decide whether they have the right level of professional competence to become community matrons.

Psychologists at the University of Nottingham have developed the test to enable nurses to decide whether they are confident enough in their own skills and abilities to case-manage patients with long-term conditions.

The self-assessment tool, included in a CD-Rom package being piloted by the Department of Health, uses video clips to portray community matrons discussing work-based situations with a mentor. After watching the clips the person undergoing the test is asked to answer a range of questions on how they would have dealt with the situation.

Professor Tom Cox, who developed the tool, said: "Confidence is a central issue when looking at the development of advanced practitioner roles like the community matrons.

"Nurses can be trained to have the clinical skills to fulfil these more complex roles but not having faith in their own abilities can potentially undermine this knowledge. We have done studies in the past comparing trainee doctors and nurses and we found little difference in the level of knowledge that they had but a huge gulf between the two in terms of their confidence -- trainee doctors were much more assured".

He added: "It's tempting to think of this as a training issue, but we believe that it is built into the culture and is part of the fabric of the NHS. The perception that nurses are less knowledgeable is a huge barrier to their confidence and professional development."