THE RELATION OF ETHNICITY AND EGO DEFENSIVENESS OF FEMALE REGISTERED NURSES TO THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD ETHNICALLY SIMILAR AND DIFFERENT PATIENTS.
Contributors: New York University.
Published: 1983
Number of pages: 157
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This study examined the relation of nurses' ethnicity and ego defensiveness to their attitudes toward ethnically similar and different patients. The theoretical rationale was based upon Katz's functional theory of attitudes. He postulated that ego defensiveness was one of the major motives in formulating attitudes. Ego defensiveness is a mechanism whereby the ego protects itself from the threatening stimuli in the environment. One such threatening stimulus may be caring for patients from different ethnic groups which may be unfamiliar to the nurses.

It was hypothesized that (1) nurses would have more favorable attitudes toward those who are ethnically similar to themselves than toward those who are ethnically different from themselves; (2a) the lower the nurses' ego defensiveness, the more favorable their attitudes toward ethnically similar patients; (2b) the lower the nurses' ego defensiveness, the more favorable their attitudes toward ethnically different patients; and (3) ethnicity and ego defensiveness together would predict greater variance in attitudes toward ethnically similar and different patients than either variable taken separately.

The subjects consisted of 151 female registered nurses from hospitals and community health agencies from the New Jersey area. The four ethnic groups of nurses were White American, Black American, Asian American, and Jewish American. Each subject completed three questionnaires: Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Ethnic Attitude Scale, and the Ethnicity and Personal Data Questionnaire. The data were analyzed by computing attitude factor scores and ego defensive scores. Ethnicity was a categorical variable. T-tests, analysis of variance, correlations, and multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the hypotheses.

The findings revealed that the four groups of nurses have more favorable attitudes toward those who are ethnically similar to themselves than toward those who are ethnically different from themselves. Hypothesis 1 was supported for the four groups of nurses: for the Black nurses in relation to nursing care-patient interaction and cultural health beliefs and practices; for the Jewish nurses in relation to cultural health beliefs and practices, and self-care practices; for the White nurses in relation to cultural health beliefs and practices; and for the Asian nurses in relation to nursing care-patient interaction. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-02, Section: B, page: 0514.

Thesis (PH.D.)--NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 1983.

School code: 0146.