Title: Perceptions of Central Gauteng occupational health nurses of their traditional and expanded roles
Background: The majority of the published literature alludes to the evolution of the occupational health nursing practitioner (OHNP) role from a traditional to an expanded role yet there are comparatively few notable studies that have attempted to explore the significance that OHNPs place on both these roles, the extent to which they enact these roles in the workplace and the amount of time they dedicate to these roles.
Purpose: The overall purpose of the research was to investigate the perceptions that OHNPs have of their traditional and expanded roles in their current occupational health nursing (OHN) practice.
Methodology: Using a survey method, occupational health nursing practitioners (n = 150 ) who practiced and are members of a professional society of occupational health practitioners in the Central Gauteng district were invited to complete a self-administered, structured questionnaire about their perceptions of their traditional and expanded roles. The questionnaire composed of 27 specific task items that reflect OHN practice role activities divided into eight major areas of OHN practice. The items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not significant) to 5 (extremely significant) and participants were also required to estimate in hours, in any given week, the time they believed they dedicated o each of the eight major areas. Main outcome measures: The main outcome measures of the research were perceptions of the OHNPs of their traditional and expanded roles and the time devoted to these roles in their current practice.
Findings: A total of 102 questionnaires were completed, yielding a response rate of 68%. The majority of the OHNPs generally regarded their traditional and expanded roles as moderately significant indicating that the roles were at least performed to some extent in their practice. Nevertheless, OHNPs regarded the roles in the traditional domain highly (mean rating = 3.29) than those in the expanded domain (mean = 2.84). Managing an occupational health service (mean= 3.60) and assessment of workers health (mean = 3.61) activities received the highest rankings whereas research-related activities had the lowest (mean = 2.39). On average OHNPs spend 35 hours per week in OHN practice of which 39.7% is spent in management of occupational health services, 33.1% in worker health assessments, 27.1% in rendering curative services, 16% in health promotion activities, 14% in health education activities, 14% in rehabilitation services, 12% in workplace assessments and 9.7% in research-related activities. The perception of the significance of core areas appeared to be mainly dependent on availability of occupational health and safety personnel and the OHNPs job title. Also comparisons made between perception of roles and time devoted to those roles revealed that there were gaps between what they perceived as significant and amount of time dedicated to roles.
Conclusions: OHNPs regard both traditional and expanded roles as moderately significant in their current practice. However gaps existed between perception of individual roles and amount of time spent in those roles. In this instance data revealed higher perception of expanded roles yet time devoted to these roles was less than that devoted to traditional roles where the perception of the roles were relatively lower. Implications for OHN practice: Knowledge of what entails significant practice from the OHNPs’ perspective is a good needs assessment technique as it indicates where training and continuing education should be targeted. Also, acknowledgement of the gap that exists between perception of a role and the actual time spent in that role indicates where strategies to reduce role ambiguity, role conflict and resulting occupational stress have to be directed.
Key words: occupational health nursing, nurses’ perceptions, role, Role Theory, traditional and expanded role, self-administered questionnaire
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/12575 |
| Date | 19 March 2013 |
| Creators | Mutava, Eunice |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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