Healthcare has greatly changed due to issues such as disease structure changes and a rapidly aging population with decreasing birthrates. Accordingly, healthcare and care provider systems are changing. For example, when a patient has an acute medical problem, the hospital is expected to provide short-term, intensive care. When the treatment is completed, home care is needed to provide support for treating the patient with dignity and respect until the end

of his/her life. Thus, nurses must provide comprehensive care that meets patients’ complex and diverse needs. Regardless of work setting, this is required of all nurses; presently, there is a growing expectation that nurses should be able to combine various sources of information and incorporate these into their decision-making and nursing practice.

Nurses are always challenged on how they can contribute to society as professionals. They are expected to take professional responsibilities for continuously providing direct care, protecting individual lives and supporting activities of daily living.

To accomplish this, it is important for nurses to improve their nursing competency and utilize it in their daily practice. Competence is an ability acquired through experience and learning. The concept of competence is two-fold: 1) potential abilities that may work effectively under certain circumstances and 2) motivation to show one’s usefulness using those abilities. On the other hand, competency is a behavioral characteristic that is based on one’s interests