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Background: The challenges of caring for stroke patients are growing due to population ageing and improved survival rates. Healthcare professionals’ competence development in stroke care is a necessity to ensure high‐quality patient care. Objectives: To identify and describe the competence areas of healthcare professionals working in the stroke patient care pathway and factors influencing these competences. Design: A mixed‐methods systematic review. Methods: The review was conducted according to the JBI guidelines and registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42020204062). PRISMA checklist guided the review process. Relevant original studies were identified by searching four databases—CINAHL (EBSCO), PubMed, Scopus and Medic. After researcher consensus was reached, 32 studies were selected for inclusion and subjected to content analysis and data tabulation. Results: Competence in care processes, clinical competence, competence in using self‐management strategies, interaction skills, skills in acknowledging family and competence in integrating the available evidence base into patient care were identified as key competence areas. Organisation of services, specialisation in stroke care, continuous development and education, family and carer and training in oral care and cognitive rehabilitation were identified as factors that influence healthcare professionals’ competence. Conclusions: Diverse clinical and interaction competencies are needed throughout the stroke care pathway, and various factors affect healthcare professionals’ competence. Further research on healthcare professionals’ stroke care competence will be needed to respond to changing healthcare demand. Relevance to clinical practice: We recommend organisational support and formulation of stroke care patient guidelines in line with healthcare competence requirements. Focus should be added for nursing professions in developing interactive communication competence since nurses spend the majority of the time providing individual patient care. Also, organisations should integrate continuing training in specialised stroke care for healthcare professionals’ competence development.

Background: Due to a steady rise in cultural and linguistic diversity in healthcare settings and evident challenges associated with this diversity, there is an urgent need to address cultural competency of nurses. Ongoing, continuing professional development is needed to ensure nurses can provide culturally congruent nursing care. Objectives: The aim of this systematic review was to identify current best evidence on the types of educational interventions that have been developed to improve nurses’ self-assessed cultural competence and on the effectiveness of these interventions. Design: A systematic literature review. Data sources: Four electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Medic, Eric) were searched for studies using a quasi-experimental design or randomised controlled trial published between January 2000 and June 2018. Review methods: Guidelines from the Centre for Review and Dissemination and the Joanna Briggs Institute guided the review. Two researchers independently assessed the eligibility of the studies by title, abstract and full-text and the methodological quality of the studies. Data tabulation and narrative analysis of study findings was performed. Results: Six studies met criteria for inclusion in the review. Studies used a quasi-experimental study design (n = 5) and a randomised controlled trial (n = 1). The participants (n = 334) were mainly nurses and interventions were conducted in various healthcare settings. Cultural competence education was offered through traditional contact teaching (n = 5) or web-based modules (n = 1) and ranged from one to 17 hours in length. Learning was enhanced through lectures, group discussions, case studies, reflective exercises and simulations. In two studies, following cultural competence interventions, participants in the intervention group had statistically significantly increased levels of competence in culture-related outcomes when compared to the control group. The four remaining studies did not include control group comparisons. Effect sizes (Cohen’s d) of the studies varied from small (d = 0.22) to very large (d = 1.47). Conclusions: There continues to be a need for high quality studies investigating educational interventions to develop nurses’ cultural competence. Further research should focus on reporting specific components of interventions that result in an increase in cultural competence.