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Fundamental goals for nursing education in Sweden, as well as in other countries (Affara, 2009), focus on developing nurses' professional competencies. This study used the following definition (Valizadeh et al., 2019):
Professional competence in nursing is a complex, relative, context-dependent, and variable concept, and involves the combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and the logical, scientific, and behavioral features in an individual, on the basis of which one can perform his roles professionally and independently in a standard manner and have appropriate clinical judgment in different situations. (p. 5)
Hereafter, the term “competence” is used interchangeably with “nurses' professional competencies.” Competence develops over time, is progressive, and reflects the influence of internal and external factors and the experiences of students. Internal factors include education, experience, knowledge, and professional orientation, whereas external factors include the complexity of the learning experience and professional autonomy (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2021). This study focused on the internal factors where the development of competence takes place not only in education but also in the complex integration of theory and practice. Several studies have described a gap between theory and practice as an obstacle to development of competence (Abu Salah et al., 2018; Hussein & Osuji, 2016; Huston et al., 2018). Another standpoint is to regard this gap as a driving force for competence development and to use the dialectic movement between theory and practice in this developing process (Södersved Källestedt et al., 2020; Widarsson et al., 2020).
Nurses' competence is based on several categories of knowledge, with the aim of intertwining observed patient events with theoretical knowledge by using analytical skills and acting (Bisholt, 2012). From a lifeworld perspective, skill is a way of seeing and acting that has settled in the lived bodies as knowledge. Nurses develop competence when theoretical and practical knowledge are intertwined in action (Ekebergh et al., 2018). Body and mind are perfectly integrated, which means that practice is not atheoretical, and there are different theoretical pathways to understand practice including self-reflection, collegial knowledge based on proven experiences, and scientific knowledge (Bengtsson, 1993). Lifeworld-led didactics with an existential understanding is a relevant educational strategy...