Aim

The study aimed to describe and explain the self-assessed gerontological nursing competence levels of Finnish nursing students and factors relating to it.

Design

A cross-sectional study design, reported by The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology guidelines.

Methods

Data were collected with the GeroNursingCom instrument, which features 53 items relating to 11 competence factors. The K-clustering technique and the Chi-squared, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney tests were used to analyse the data.

Results

Seven hundred and ninety-nine nursing students from nine randomly selected higher education institutions were invited to participate in 2019. Three distinct student profiles were identified according to the data (N = 274): Profile A—lower intermediate competence (23.1% of students), Profile B—intermediate competence (45.8%) and Profile C—high competence (31.1%). The strongest competence area for all students was appreciative encounter and interaction, and the weakest was supporting the older person’s sexuality. Nursing students have diverse backgrounds and their overall competence in gerontological nursing is shaped in part by their previous education, motivations and work experience.

Relevance to clinical practice

Recognizing students’ different gerontological nursing competence profiles enables the implementation of targeted education to improve competence in clinical practice.