No description available.

Employee engagement is a topic that has been widely studied over the course of the past 30 years. Its potential value to healthcare organizations has only begun to be recognized within the most recent decade. Numerous studies have been conducted which demonstrate that increased employee engagement contributes to improved patient outcomes, including decreased mortality and hospital acquired conditions as well as increased patient experience scores. Despite the plethora of literature available documenting the drivers of, barriers to, and outcomes associated with employee engagement hospitals have struggled to gain traction in increasing their scores. Many experts in employee engagement posit that this could be due to a lack of consistent conceptualization of the phenomenon. This qualitative descriptive study was conducted to understand the perceived attitudes and behaviors of the nurses who are engaged in their work from the perspective of both their peers and leaders. Sixteen total participants were interviewed utilizing a semi-structured interview guide with questions that were derived from Arnold Bakker’s evidence-based model of work engagement. Content analysis was utilized to identify themes and sub-themes from each of the participant group’s responses to each of the questions. There were minimal differences in the responses of the direct-care RNs as compared to the nurse leaders regarding their perceptions of the engaged nurse. Resulting themes were then synthesized and four overarching themes identified. Overarching themes were personal style, extra-role behavior, commitment to the patient, and leadership. Participant responses supported Bakker’s model, but highlighted the engaged nurse’s personality as a significant and widely overlooked contributor to engagement. By recognizing the personal attributes inherent to the engaged nurse hospitals may better understand the traits important to the recruitment of nurses who are more likely to be engaged in their work. Effective recruitment and retention of a highly engaged workforce will allow organizations to benefit from the extra-role work often demonstrated by the engaged nurse and realize improved patient outcomes as a result.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is primarily identified as a metropolitan disease. However, it has suggested that the Centers for Disease Control may underestimate the prevalence of AIDS in the population of higher socioeconomic status, overstate the relative prevalence of AIDS in the minorities, and understate the prevalence of the disease in the Midwest (Laumann, Gagnon, Michaels, Michael, & Coleman, 1989). The problem addressed in this study was to determine whether groups of urban and rural perioperative registered nurses differ in their attitudes of tolerance toward AIDS patients. The attitudes of rural and urban perioperative nurses were examined in a comparative descriptive design. It is important to identify nurses' attitudes toward AIDS patients because nurses must interact with AIDS patients on an increasing basis.Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) Theory of Cognitive Emotion was used for the framework. A convenience sample of 77 perioperative registered nurses was obtained for the study. Five midwestern hospitals were used to collect the data. Two urban hospitals and three rural hospitals were used as collection sites. The AIDS Attitudes Scale (AAS) was used as the tool to collect the data (Shrum, Turner, and Bruce, 1989). The AAS consists of a fifty-four item questionnaire designed to measure attitudinal tolerance towards the AIDS patient. Validity and reliability of the tool were established with a resulting reliability score of .94.Findings revealed significant differences among urban and rural perioperative registered nurses in attitudes toward AIDS patients (p=.0387), with urban perioperative nurses being more tolerant of AIDS patients. Item-by-item analysis indicated that although urban perioperative nurses were more tolerant, an urban perioperative nurse would be more uncomfortable around a patient with AIDS (p=.0082). However, more rural perioperative nurses indicated that they would move out if a roommate had AIDS (p=.0030). Rural perioperative nurses indicated more often that no one deserved to have a disease like AIDS (p=.0057). Demographic profiles of registered perioperative nurses demonstrated similar backgrounds in relation to age, educational level, and gender.Conclusions of this study indicated urban perioperative registered nurses hold more tolerant attitudes toward HIV/AIDS patients than do rural perioperative registered nurses. / School of Nursing

No description available.

No description available.

Parish Nursing is relatively new, having its original Scope and Standards from the American Nurses Association published in 1998. At the same time the Basic Preparation Curriculum for Parish Nursing, which had been developed through the International Parish Nurse Resource Center, was distributed to Educational Partners of the Center and used for Parish Nurse instruction. This curriculum has subsequently been revised in 2004 and 2009, but over this time a study of the learning needs of novice Parish Nurses has not been documented. This study is an assessment of the learning needs of one group of Parish Nurses. The study was constructed on 11 prioritized Parish Nursing skills from the “Getting Started” module of the Basic Preparation Curriculum for Parish Nursing and consisted of three questions about each skill. Survey respondents were asked to rank 1) the importance of the skill, 2) the percentage of new Parish Nurses whom they felt were deficient in the skill and 3) how important it was to add more training for that skill in the Parish Nurse course. Answers to the skill questions utilized a six point Likert scale. Among other biographical information, respondents were asked how many years they had been an active Parish Nurse and to rank themselves based on Benner’s (1984) levels of expertise. Although the outcomes of the study are focused on the learning needs of novice Parish Nurses, input was obtained from Parish Nurses of all levels of expertise. A qualitative component was obtained from the textbox at the end of each set of the three skill questions. The comments gave voice to the respondents and enriched the findings. The study affirmed that the skill of ‘Keeping Confidentiality’ was unanimously rated highly and well done, but this is an essential skill to all nursing. The most variance came with the skill of ‘Making a Budget’. Many Parish Nurses volunteer their services to their church, often with a ‘zero’ budget to work with, so making a budget is immaterial. The study showed that respondents in general were satisfied with their Parish Nursing training and that of their novice colleagues. / Department of Educational Studies

This study investigates the preferences of nurses for professional and nonprofessional work-related outcomes, the professional/nonprofessional distinction arising from a theoretical framework developed by Kleingartner (1973). Using Kleingartner's distinction, various motivation theory concepts, and observations of nursing's professionalizing efforts, it was predicted that nurses would attach greater importance to professional work-related outcomes than to nonprofessional work-related outcomes. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to nurses in four different Lower Mainland hospitals. The results suggest that nurses do attach greater importance to professional than to nonprofessional work-related outcomes that this does not vary with employing hospital, and that individual work-related outcomes are rated in a very consistent and similar manner by nurses in different hospitals. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This study investigated the possibility that registered nurses, working directly with the patient, may hold attitudes towards consumer rights and nursing independence which are different from those in the literature and those of nurse leaders and activists which are reflected in the resolutions on consumer rights passed at the Annual Meeting of the Registered Nurses' Association of British Columbia in 1976. The Pankratz and Pankratz (1974) Attitude Scale, consisting of 47 statements, divided into three clusters: 1) Nursing Autonomy and Advocacy; 2) Patient Rights; and 3) Rejection of Traditional Role Limitations was administered by mail to a random sample of registered nurses who were members of one of the Districts of the Registered Nurses' Association of British Columbia, Canada. The sample was stratified by educational level and 99.1 percent of 425 subjects were contacted by telephone prior to the delivery of the questionnaire. A total of 392 questionnaires (92.23 percent of the complete sample) was returned. Analysis of variance techniques were used to test the difference between the means when the three clusters in the Attitude Scale (Pankratz and Pankratz 1974) were analyzed by the six independent variables—administrative position, working hours, experience, work setting, age and education. Results indicated that nurses in administrative positions, those with advanced education and those who work in educational or community health settings, are more likely to score highly on the Pankratz and Pankratz (1974) Attitude Scale, than are nurses who have not completed a university degree and who work in a hospital setting as staff nurses. The attitudes expressed suggest that nurses are motivated to accept the patient as a participating member of the health care team but they need support to assume the risks associated with a self-image incorporating professional autonomy and interdependence. Conclusions reached were that the mean of the total sample, on all three clusters, was sufficiently high to encourage nurse leaders to provide assertive leadership on the issues of consumer rights in health care, informed access to information by the consumer and nursing autonomy. Such leadership would develop role models of consumer advocacy with which staff nurses could identify. It is suggested that by increasing, wherever practical, the patient's participation in decision making and in his own care, a more professional and more consumer oriented staff nurse role could evolve. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

No description available.

This study was designed to identify the factors that influence an individual's length of employment in the field of nursing following graduation from a baccalaureate program. Subjects were classified as drop-outs or active, and compared with reference to personal, academic, and social variables. The data used for this study were compiled by the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Subjects were measured at five separate intervals, beginning in 1972 and ending in 1979. Data collection instruments included the use of questionnaires and completion of a short test measuring verbal and nonverbal ability. Multiple correlation was used to identify those independent variables which were statistically linked. From this, a profile was developed and submitted to multiple regression analysis in order to define a prediction equation. A discriminant function analysis was performed to determine how well the variables were able to distinguish group membership. The results of this study indicate that academic variables are among the best predictors of length of employment in the field of nursing following graduation. Specifically, college grades are shown to be the best predictor in the early college years. As the student nears graduation, academic variables become less important and social variables become more important in the prediction of length of employment. Accurate prediction occurs in approximately 70% of the cases classified. These results would support the present practice of using grades as selection criteria in schools of nursing. While the social and personal variables did not have as much influence on length of employment as the academic variables, prediction efficiency was hindered by the number of variables under consideration and the small sample size. It is recommended that the study by replicated with a reduced number of variables and a larger sample.