RESUMEN
The growing demands have been placed on nurses working in public healthcare system, mostly due to expanding set of required competence. The presented cross-sectional study is aimed to investigate the level of self-assessed competence of community nurses in three primary health care establishments of Kazakhstan and to identify the relatives' perception of competence needed to provide medical care to their severely ill family members. The subjects enrolled into the study were 115 nurses employed in three primary healthcare establishments of Kazakhstan and 58 relatives/caregivers registered at the same establishments. Stoma care appeared to be the most problematic task for nurses in addition to providing of the first aid in different emergency situations, such as dyspnea, cardiac pain, vomiting, and pain attack. Relatives/caregivers reported satisfactory levels of such competence as feeding a bedridden patient, maintenance of basic hygiene, performing a simple physical therapy and instillation of eye/ear drops. Our results could be useful for healthcare managers in obtaining a clear vision of which educational areas require prioritization and guide public health interventions to overcome the identified problems.