Person-centred care is linked to quality of care. The goal of person-centred care is a meaningful life, which is particularly relevant in long-term care, where residents live their everyday lives. This two-phased study aimed to develop a continuing education intervention and evaluate its effectiveness in promoting professional nurses’ person-centred care competence.

In Phase I, the ‘Person First - Please’ continuing education intervention was developed based on the literature reviews. In Phase II, i) the level of nurses’ person-centred care competence, their perceptions of person-centred care climate and the relationship between them were investigated by a cross-sectional survey (n = 200 nurses) using validated international instruments; ii) the effectiveness of the intervention was tested using a quasi-experimental design. Cluster sampling was used, including long-term care settings for older people from two cities in the western Finland region. The data were collected from nurses (n = 77 in the intervention group, n = 123 in the control group), residents and their next of kin (n = 18 dyads in intervention units, n = 21 dyads in control units) using validated international instruments at three time points. iii) a mixed-method process evaluation was used to assess the fidelity and acceptability of the intervention implementation. The process evaluation data were collected from nurses in the intervention group using a developed scale (n = 51) and focus group interviews (n = 14). The fidelity of the intervention implementation was observed by nurse managers (n = 3) using a developed structured questionnaire. The data were analysed using statistical methods and content analysis.

Person-centred care competence and perceived person-centred care climate were found to be associated. The intervention improved nurses’ person-centred care competence and strengthened the perceived person-centred care climate by the nurses, the residents, and their next of kin. The intervention was implemented as planned and was found to be acceptable. The ‘Person First – Please’ intervention can be an effective way to strengthen nurses’ person-centred care competence and can be implemented in Finnish long-term care units. Further research is needed to conduct a larger-scale study with multiple clusters and a longer follow-up time to ensure the stability of the results.