Background
Person-centred care requires that nurses are competent in this approach to care. There may be an association between person-centred care competence and person-centred care climate, but it has not been demonstrated in the literature. This is the justification for the survey study to gain staff's perceptions of such a relationship.

Objectives
The aim of this study was to analyse the levels and associations between person-centred care competence and the person-centred care climate as assessed by professional nurses in long-term care settings for older people.

Methods
A descriptive cross-sectional survey design with cluster sampling was used to recruit professional nurses of different levels from six long-term care institutions for older people. Data were collected using the Patient-centred Care Competency scale (PCC) and the Person-centred Climate Questionnaire staff version (PCQ-S) in September 2021 and analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results
The mean score on the PCC was rated at a good level of 3.80 (SD 0.45), and the PCQ-S was rated at a good level of 3.87 (SD 0.53). The correlation between PCC and PCQ-S total scores (r = .37, p < .001) indicated that person-centred care competence and person-centred care climate were associated. No associations were detected between nurses’ educational levels and PCC (p = .19) or PCQ-S (p = .13) or in terms of age or work experience.

Conclusions
The results provide insights into competence and climate levels of person-centred care and preliminary evidence of an association between nurses’ assessed competence in person-centred care and the perceived person-centred care climate in long-term care. Nurses’ individual characteristics did not appear to affect the level of person-centred care competence or climate. In the future professional nurses of different levels could benefit from effective continuing education in person-centred care. This study design serving for the future intervention study registered to the ClinicalTrials.goc NCT04833153