PSYCHOSOCIALLY ORIENTED BEHAVIOR OF GERONTOLOGICAL NURSES IN A LONG-TERM CARE FACILITY (INSTITUTION, AGING).
Contributors: University of Kentucky.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 261
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Gerontology.
Description: Psychosocial role articulation of 50 gerontological nurses in one long-term care facility was studied by direct observation of nurse-patient interactions, content analysis of nursing notes, change-of-shift reports, staff conferences, critical incidents, degree of professional/organizational commitment, and job satifaction.

Participants in this study had a mean age of 41.8 years and 8.4 mean years of experience in nursing practice. Almost 50 percent of the participants were educated in diploma programs, 28 percent in associate of arts programs, 20 percent in baccalaureate programs and six percent had masters' degrees. Absenteeism and turnover rates for 1977 and 1978 were lower for these participants than for nurses in comparable long-term care settings.

Nurses in this study indicated a moderately strong degree of organizational commitment overall, with nurses on the day shift expressing a higher degree of professional commitment. Nurses on the day shift responded with a high degree of psychosocial role articulation, as measured by the unstructured critical incidents instrument. All nurses expressed a higher degree of psychosocial role articulation with less dependent patients, as observed in the nurse-patient interactions. Recent graduates revealed a lower degree of psychosocial role articulation when observed interacting with patients. All nurses in the study expressed a moderately strong degree of job satisfaction.

Several implications for further research and for nursing education were derived from the study: (1) dimensions of the psychosocial concept require further exploration since the concept was limited in this study to the degree of patient-focused care; (2) both organizational variables and individual characteristics of nurses require further investigation as to how they influence the nurses' performance with geriatric patients in long-term care settings; (3) the timing, appropriateness and evaluation of psychosocial care in clinical practice requires clarification; (4) cognitive and instrumental skills needed by the nurse to apply psychosocial concepts in patient care require further identification; and (5) nursing educators should consider introducing the care of the geriatric patient in long-term care settings into all levels of the educational system, in order to prepare nurses to care for the growing population of older adults.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: B, page: 1152.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, 1984.

School code: 0102.