BACKGROUND: The growing focus on health-centered care emphasizes humanistic skills and clinical narrative competence in nursing, particularly in children's health. However, there is a lack of relevant research on pediatric nurses' clinical narrative competence and humanistic care. This study aimed to investigate the status and influencing factors of clinical narrative competence of pediatric specialist nurses. METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved 115 pediatric specialist nurses in Jiangsu province, selected through convenience sampling. The survey utilized the self-administered General Information Form for Nursing Personnel, the Clinical Narrative Competence Scale (NCS), the Nurses' Humanistic Care Quality Scale (NCCAT), and the Spiritual Climate Short-form Scale (SCS). Multiple linear regression methods were employed to analyze the factors influencing the clinical narrative competence of pediatric specialist nurses. RESULTS: A total of 115 participants (all females, with a mean age of 39.07 ± 4.65 years) were involved. Total and mean NCS scores were 156.57 ± 17.42 and 5.80 ± 0.65
Total and mean NCCAT scores were 124.27 ± 12.78 and 4.29 ± 0.44
Total and mean SCS scores were 16.87 ± 2.18 and 4.22 ± 0.55. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the NCCAT(β = 0.440,95%CI: 0.337 ~ 0.861、P<
0.001) and the SCS (β = 0.200,95%CI: 0.127 ~ 3.070, P = 0.033) were associated with NCS. CONCLUSIONS: The clinical narrative competence of pediatric specialist nurses is at an intermediate level. Humanistic caring quality and spiritual climate are the influencing factors. Nursing administrators and educators should focus on improving humanistic care and work climate and adopt a personalized, multidimensional approach to enhance the education and training of pediatric specialist nurses in narrative medicine or narrative nursing, aiming to improve their clinical narrative competence.