Nurse performance: strengths and weaknesses.

The present report compares four sets of performance data from two studies in which the same instrument was used. Head nurses' rankings of staff nurses' performance on 52 specific skills were compared with the staff nurses' own rankings. The findings are in remarkable agreement on the skills that nurses perform well and those that need improvement. Spearman correlation coefficients of skills comparing head nurse and staff nurse rankings were r = .787 and .823, rankings of two sets of head nurses, r = .896, and rankings of two sets of staff nurses, r = .889. For all nurses, professional development skills were performed well and teaching/collaboration skills needed improvement.