The perception that obstetrical nurses have of their competence in assisting hospital deliveries has been investigated in this qualitative study. Data collection was performed through individual semi-structured interviews at a university hospital in Porto Alegre, and was then submitted to content analysis. The analyses were grounded on frameworks that define professional competence as the ability to mobilize different kinds of knowledge, depending on the practice problems to be solved. The obstetrical nurses understand competence in attending hospital deliveries as something multidimensional, although they have emphasized its technical dimension. This emphasis is justified through insecurity resulting from a lack of space to provide nursing care to hospital delivery, due both to disputes with physicians and to deficiencies in nurses' training. The desire to be competent in providing care during hospital deliveries has not been translated into awareness of their responsibilities in changing that scenario. This suggests that in order to act towards those desired changes, it would be necessary to develop not only technical but also ethical-political competence.
Obstetrical nursing; Professional competence; Nurse's role; Parturition; Humanized delivery