PLANNED CHANGE ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE PATIENT CARE BY HEAD NURSES IN GENERAL HOSPITALS.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 630
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purposes of this descriptive study were: (1) to explore what types of planned changes head nurses have attempted to improve patient care and what were their perceptions of the factors which facilitated and hindered these attempts, (2) to test an instrument measuring selected dimensions of the planned change process and (3) to explore the use of multiple data collection procedures from the same subjects.

From a list of head nurse members of the American Nurses Association, 243 met the delimitations and completed the data collection procedures--22 in the pilot study to determine the methodology, and 221 in the major study. The data collection method for the major study was (a) a structured telephone interview, in which subjects discussed their best remembered successful (BRS) and best remembered unsuccessful (BRU) planned change attempts, the facilitating and hindering factors associated with these attempts, and change attempts in other outcome/status categories, and (b) a mailed questionnaire dealing with the BRS planned change.

Of the 722 planned changes cited in the telephone interviews, 197 BRS and 75 BRU planned change attempts were discussed in depth. The BRS and BRU attempts were categorized into 11 inclusive types. Facilitating and hindering factors were compiled for each type.

Sum scores for Subscales I and III of the mailed questionnaire were used to determine differences by other variables. Subscale I measured how the change agent felt about the change agent role during the implementation phase of the change process. Subscale III measured the degree to which the change agent implemented various activities. For both subscales, the only significant difference was between head nurses who had received planned change instruction and those who had not. For Subscale III, there was also a significant difference by type of unit.

Discussion of the findings, future use of the instrument, and use of the qualitative-quantitative methodology was proffered. Recommendations were made for future research based on the hypotheses generated by this study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-10, Section: B, page: 2925.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1987.

School code: 0227.