Educational interventions for teaching social competencies in nursing students: A systematic review

Background This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and quality of educational interventions on social competencies (SC) with nursing students, as well as to examine the characteristics of the measurement instruments used for SC. Methods A systematic review was conducted that included scientific articles with educational interventions on SC with nursing students from the last 10 years, in English and Spanish. The databases consulted were Embase, PsyINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, LILACS, Scopus, Cochrane and CINAHL. Risk of bias was assessed using ROBINS-I for nonrandomized studies and RoB 2 for randomized clinical trials. Results Of 2,748 original articles, only 16 met the inclusion criteria. Most reported improvements in CS, although the methodological quality was moderate. A total of 25 instruments were identified. Except for two, all had reliability indices greater than 0.7. Conclusions Educational interventions on SC for nursing students were effective, although generally brief and of moderate quality. Future studies should apply longer-term approaches and use globally validated instruments.