The nursing profession has utilized a variety of terms to describe the work that nurses do, such as observing, monitoring, and critical thinking. Nursing surveillance is a term emerging in the research and clinical environment to describe the care, both seen and unseen, by professional registered nurses. It has been described as a complex, multi-dimensional concept that influences patient outcomes, yet little research has been done to examine the concept, how it is measured, and its role in outcomes.The surveillance process includes ongoing data collection, interpretation, and synthesis for decision making. This research proposes that nursing surveillance is comprised of five dimensions: actions, expertise, early recognition, intuition, and decision making. The purpose of this study is to examine the dimensions of nursing surveillance in the acute care setting.This study used a descriptive design to survey nurses on the dimensions of nursing surveillance. The survey consisted of four existing instruments measuring expertise, early recognition, intuition, and decision making, and one new instrument measuring activities associated with nursing surveillance. A content review panel was used to develop the new Nursing Surveillance Activities Scale. A sample of 158 medical-surgical nurses participated in completing the full Nursing Surveillance Survey.The goal of the analysis was to determine how well the dimensions represented the surveillance variable; however, based on sample size, revisions to the methods were made. Factor analysis was used to analyze each instrument's items and total representation of the variable. The instruments performed adequately in psychometric testing, and modifications were made so composite development could be achieved. The dimensions were factored as a composite variable and four of the five dimensions loaded onto a single variable, while the activities dimensions loaded separately. These results can be explained through a theoretical difference between the dimensions or limitations with the newly created Nursing Surveillance Activities Scale.This study identified a relationship between the four cognitive dimensions of nursing surveillance and their representation of the variable. Future research in nursing surveillance should analyze the role of the nursing surveillance variable, including the relationship to nursing outcomes.

The purpose of this research project was to examine whether frontline nurse managers who had attended a leadership program, perceived their leadership style as containing behaviors representative of transformational leadership. A secondary purpose was to determine the participant's opinions about the value of a leadership program for their practice. Current literature was utilized to support this research project examining a nursing systems issue.The primary instrument used to collect data about leader practice was the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) (University of Georgia, 2002). An evaluation tool was also designed and utilized to gather information about the participant's perception of their leadership behaviors after completion of a training program. Survey participants were selected from nurses who completed the Arizona Healthcare Leadership Academy (AzHCLA) (2007) course in the last four years.A course survey and results from the LPI revealed that study participants perceived an increase in their behaviors related to leading others as well as having learned new skills by having completed the AzHCLA course. Nurse's educational levels were compared to the five leadership practice subgroups from the LPI to examine whether a nurse's educational level could better account for an increase in leadership competencies. Research data revealed that no relationship between educational levels existed but that certain leadership skills were gained by having completed a leadership educational program. By using descriptive statistics, mean scores were used to identify differences in how nurses perceived their individual competencies and behaviors after having completed leadership education. Reported perceptions of competencies and behaviors indicated that educational programs can be beneficial to frontline nurse leaders.While results from an ANOVA showed there was no statistical significance related to education and LPI subgroups, there was a trend in the mean differences for those individuals with a master's degree. Qualitative data revealed that course participants perceived having gained new leadership skills and behaviors. The data from this study created a baseline of information that warrants further investigation to identify if indeed education makes a difference in perceived leadership practices.