Nursing care is a profession that depends on knowledge management. To provide patient-centered nursing care and ensure patient safety, nurses must continue professional learning and innovation. Knowledge management is essential to providing nursing care of high quality. The purpose of this study is to describe the current status of knowledge management and nursing competence and to explore their relationship. A self developed structured questionnaire was mailed to a sample of 840 nurses in teaching hospitals in Taiwan. 756 subjects responded and 701 (83%) completed the questionnaire. The statistic methods included descriptive statistics, ANOVA and multiple regressions. The results showed that (1) there is significant difference in nurses? perception of knowledge management by age, education, practicing years, professional level, and hospital status; (2) there is significant difference in nurses? status of knowledge management by age, education, practicing years, professional level, and hospital status; (3) there is significant difference in overall nursing competence by age, practicing years, professional level, hospital status, region, and hospital ownership; (4) knowledge management was positively correlated with nursing competence. Clinical implications to both health care organizations and nurses were discussed. We also suggest directions of future studies about knowledge management and nursing competence.
