Thesis (M.A.)--Ball State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Nov. 30, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-104).

Nurses and doctors have worked together to manage patients for a long time. Within the past decade, collaboration between doctors and nurses to provide improved health care has become commonplace especially, in hospitals. As and nurses differ in their professional goals – clinical care delivery and patient and advocacy – they face challenges in their work-related collaboration. Most instruments to measure doctor-nurse collaboration were developed for western healthcare institutions. As a result they were unlikely to be psychometrically or culturally oriented to a Chinese healthcare environment. The aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable tool to test doctor-nurse collaboration in a Chinese healthcare setting and to assess collaboration in public hospitals in China. Two hospitals participated in the study, including 398 doctors and nurses. development included content validity through feedback from experts with international medical or nursing backgrounds to inform questionnaire refinement and reliability testing. Factor analysis was used for data reduction and factor structure and to confirm the factor structure of a previously validated instrument. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were established. Summary descriptive statistics were calculated to compare the prevalence of levels of collaboration. Logistic and linear regression were used to identify factors contributing to work-place collaboration. 398 doctors and nurses participated. A 28-item questionnaire was developed and validated. Three factors (work related autonomy, work related skills and work related relationships) were identified. The high construct validity was determined for each factor and for the overall questionnaire. Overall Cronbach alpha was 0.83, by hospital 0.85 and 0.88 respectively; and by profession (doctors and nurses) 0.81 and 0.84 respectively. a profession nurses vs doctors and by location the general hospital vs the hospital were associated with more positive work-place collaboration scores. variables were included in the regression model explaining 56% of total variance collaboration scores. Doctor-nurse collaboration was negatively associated with working hours and number of patients under care. Finally, a negative relationship between doctor-nurse collaboration and depression was confirmed. In conclusion, the questionnaire “Work-related Collaboration among Doctors and Nurses Scale” had satisfactory validity and reliability. It has the potential to be a useful tool in evaluating doctor-nurse collaboration in public hospitals in China. The evaluation of both the clinical and cost effectiveness of strategies to improve effective inter-professional education and inter-professional work environments for doctors and nurses is needed to confirm these findings and to add to the evidence of the impact of collaboration on work efficiency, conflict management and avoidance, and unnecessary waste. Fostering collaborative relationships has the potential to decrease workplace stress and depression symptoms and perhaps thereby improve productivity and efficiency. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Philosophy

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Communication Studies

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Clinical Nursing, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 277-285.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1987. / "A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ..."

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1987. / "A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ..."

The purpose of the study was to test a theoretical model explaining nurse practitioner judgments about the amount of interaction and participatory decision-making between nurse practitioners and physicians. The specific aims of the study included: (1) to examine the influence of nurse practitioner perceptions of care complexity and expected benefit-cost ratio of physician involvement on interaction and participatory decision-making; (2) to test a theory that integrates two alternative explanations of amount of interaction and participatory decision-making derived from social exchange theory and technology theory; and (3) to investigate the effect of practice rules on the relationships in the theoretical model. The study used a mathematical correlational design with a causal modeling methodology for model testing. A convenience sample of 38 nurse practitioners participated. Major concepts in the model were measured using a four scale magnitude estimation instrument developed for the study. The instrument consisted of operational definitions for each of the concepts and a set of 18 clinical situations scaled according to care complexity. Psychometric properties of the instrument including stability, internal consistency, content and construct validity were estimated. Matching of responses across two modalities was used to validate the production of ratio level data. Multiple regression techniques were used for theoretical model testing. In the test of the theoretical model, both care complexity and expected benefit-cost ratio had a significant impact on the nurse practitioners' judgments about amount of interaction and participatory decision-making. Predictions derived from social exchange theory and technology theory were supported. The effect of practice rules on the relationships in the model could not be determined since the index of practice rules did not achieve an acceptable level of stability. Nurse practitioner judgments about interaction and participatory decision-making were influenced by perceptions of care complexity and expectations of the benefits and costs of interaction with a specific physician. An understanding of the factors that affect nurse practitioner judgments about interaction and participatory decision-making may be used to guide interventions that enhance the fit between these structures and outcomes of care.

This study examined to what extent the biological sex of the nurse-physician interactants affects the interpersonal communication satisfaction experienced by the nurse. Hypotheses One and Two predicted that communication satisfaction would differ significantly across various combinations of sex of nurse and sex of physician dyads. Hypothesis Three predicted that male nurses would experience higher levels of communication satisfaction than would female nurses. Interpersonal communication satisfaction was operationalized by two self-report instruments. The sample included 153 male and female nurses. Results indicated that same-sex interactions were more satisfying for female nurses, while mixed-sex interactions were more satisfying for male nurses. Nurses reported greater communication satisfaction when interacting with female physicians. Hypothesis three was not supported.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2005. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 208 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Although many researchers have studied language attitudes in the last three decades, none of the studies have been conducted in the hospital setting, where there are more serious consequences for those working with patients being labeled linguistically "incompetent," as charges of incompetence in language are apt to lead to charges of incompetence in other areas of mastery as well (e.g., Ryan, 1983). This study examines the attitudes of a sample of nurses from three Portland-area hospitals towards nonnative English speaking physicians. The subjects, 156 medical-surgical nurses, listened to three anonymous audiotaped physicians who were from three different ethnic backgrounds: American, Japanese and Persian. The physicians were first all recorded reading a short patient history and giving a verbal order directed toward a nurse. This was the formal context. For the informal context, the physicians gave an impromptu response to a question regarding their future plans. The nurses rated each physician twice, once for each context, using the Speech Evaluation Instrument (SEI), a semantic differential scale using bipolar adjectives developed by Zahn and Hopper (1985). Results indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between a physician's pronunciation and a nurse's perceptions of his medical competency, as measured by the SEI, with the native English speaking physician receiving a higher rating than the two nonnative English speaking physicians. The native Japanese speaking physician, who had the strongest accent, received the lowest ratings on the SEI. There was also a significant positive relationship between the context the physician was speaking in and the ratings he received on the SEI, with the informal context receiving a higher rating for all three physicians than the formal context. If a physician's pronunciation or speech style causes nurses, not to mention patients, to evaluate him/her negatively, then one implication of this study is for the need for more pronunciation work and accent reduction exercises not only in the English as a second/foreign language classroom, but also as a continued offering for nonnative English speaking hospital personnel in teaching hospitals. Another implication relates to the need for better preparing nurses to work and communicate successfully with nonnative English speaking physicians, other hospital personnel, and patients by offering transcultural nursing classes in nursing school and making it a mandatory part of every nurse's education.