TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCE FOR NURSING AND PHYSIOTHERAPY STUDENTS

In this contribution we explain eight essential transversal competences for nurses and physiotherapist in their daily work and their relationship with patients. Following, we present briefly each competence and their most important aspects.

Self-esteem
Self-esteem refers to love oneself as one is, and within a personal development process. This competence includes all the personal aspects from body characteristics to skills, defaults, social skills and relation abilities, or working and spiritual aspects. An adequate self-esteem should comprise a good level of these four aspects: self-respect, self-valuation, self-assessment, and self-reliance.

Self-motivation
The first step to work on our self-motivation is discovering which the reasons we make a specific task are. This could be made by three different factors: because of a) we like to do it (inner motivation); b) we want to achieve this task; and c) the contingent enforcements and punishments. Inner motivation has been studied to be related to more satisfaction and less burnout reported by nurses and other health professionals.

Self-discipline
Self-discipline is defined such as the skill to be responsible and have control on the own behavior, considering many decisions. Self-discipline consisted in three components: a) activities action; b) motivation; c) decision making.

Time Management
Time management is a core competence at academic and professional context. This competence allows us to reach our objectives successfully. Health professionals usually carry out their jobs in stressful conditions, and given the importance of their functions, time management is absolutely necessary.

Decision Making
Decision making is an important competence for nurse and physiotherapy students and professionals, since health decisions have crucial consequences. Furthermore, healthcare decisions should be usually made under uncertainty and risk conditions. This process requires the sequential develop of several steps: searching for information, generation of alternatives, and valuation of alternatives, decision making, planning action and results assessment.

Problem Solving
The learning of trouble solution is especially relevant in professions in which it is necessary to give response to persons' problems modifying partly their actions. The trouble solution can be understood in relation to the attainment of a goal, to achieve a solution adapted for every problem or centered on the trouble and the person characteristics, which will be those who lead to a successful solution.

Emotional Intelligence
Mayer and Salovey (1997) described that the emotional intelligence implied an ability to perceive, assess, and express emotions precisely, to access and generate feelings which get easier the thoughts, and to repair the emotions from an intellectual emotional growth. Several studies have shown the importance of each Emotional Intelligence dimension and their roles in the health professional context.

Leadership
Leadership is a psychosocial process where a person leads a group. However, the group should accept the leader and the context may influence their relationship. A good leadership helps maintaining the cohesiveness, achieving the goals of the group and improving the efficiency of the group. In the health context, especially stressful, multi- disciplinary and highly oriented to others, leadership skills become a useful tool for the team.