Growth Trajectories and Detrended Intraindividual Variability to Assess Case Managers' Competency in Continuing Education.

Tracking the effectiveness of CE over time beyond simply confirming its efficacy in continuing education (CE) in nursing is crucial. However, research evidence on the analysis of change of the effectiveness of CE over time is limited, particularly in the context of case management. This methodological study aimed to introduce both a growth curve modeling and an intra-individual variability index and demonstrate step-by-step procedures and interpretations of those analyses to assess case manager competency over time, using secondary data analysis. Data were collected from 22 case managers affiliated with the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation who attended three series of CE to improve their competency between May 2008 and August 2009. Unexpected results revealed a negative fixed effect of education level in the overall estimation of case managers' competency trajectory and a negative correlation between education level and case managers' intra-individual competency inconsistency over time. J Contin Nurs Educ. 2017;48(5):230-238. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.