Zeitschrift für perioperative und kritische Intensivpflege
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Students Predictors of Performance in Nursing and Midwifery Technician (NMT) Licensure Examination in Southern Malawi: An Ex Post Facto Study

Mc Geofrey Mvula, Annie Msosa

Objectives: Success in the nursing and midwifery licensure examination is the only legal prerequisite to practice as a nurse and midwife in Malawi. However, the past decade has registered poor performance of students in NMT licensure examinations for candidates who sit fail for the first time. The study sought to unravel whether students’ sociodemographic and academic characteristics could predict NMT licensure examination performance.

Methods: A quantitative ex post facto study design. The study population consisted of 2,668 with a stratified random sampling method we reviewed 280 former NMT licensure exams candidate records from 2013 to 2017. Chi-square/ Fisher's exact statistics and logistic regression determined the significance of associations and predictors respectively.

Results: The study revealed that NMT licensure examination could be predicted by students’ academic characteristics especially entry Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) point scores {p<0.001, OR 0.830, 95% CI (0.771- 0.892)}, and exit college final scores {p<0.001, OR 1.214, 95% CI (1.131-1.303)}. This study established that students’ socio-demographic characteristics like age {χ2 (2, N=280) =13.143, p<0.001}, and marital status {χ2 (1, N=280) =5.645, p=0.018} were significantly associated with NMT licensure examination performance but were not predictors of NMT licensure examination outcome. Furthermore, this study did not find any association between NMT licensure examination performance and the sex of the students {χ2 (1, N=280) =0.523, p=0.470}.

Conclusion: The study results confirmed that predictors of NMT licensure examinations performance are academic variables like entry MSCE scores and exit college final scores. Therefore, nursing and midwifery teaching institutions should frame relevant admission criteria, and recognize and timely intervene on students at risk of failure in licensure exams.