HEAD NURSES PERCEPTIONS OF SELF DERIVED FROM AN ANALYSIS OF THEIR CONVERSATION (NURSES).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 263
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Health Care Management.; Psychology, Industrial.
Description: Sixteen head nurses at a three hospital medical center in a middle Atlantic state were the participants in this qualitative study. There was at least one head nurse from each of the medical center's clinical divisions and head nurses from inpatient and outpatient units.

The phenomenon of interest in this study was the experience of being a head nurse. Four groups of head nurses met and discussed topics posed by the researcher. The conversations were tape recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions of the conversations were then analysed and themes in the conversations identified.

Head nurses described their experience as head nurses in terms of relationships with staff, assistant head nurses, hospital and nursing administrations, other head nurses, other hospital departments, physicians and patients. These relationships were described in a context of multiple changes in the hospital environment and in their role as head nurses.

Head nurses described their relationship with their staff as a primary source of job satisfaction and as a source of frustration. A family analogy was frequently used in describing this relationship. The relationship with their assistants was also an important one for head nurses. The ability to delegate tasks to assistants was seen as essential to management of the nursing unit. Head nurses described their relationship with each other as a primary source of knowledge about the head nurse role as well as an important source of support. Other hospital departments were described as seeing themselves providing services for nurses rather than for patients. Head nurses described themselves as increasingly distant from patients and regretted the loss of satisfaction which they had experienced as staff nurses.

The data were analysed using a feminist perspective. Head nurses maintained a complex network of relationships within the hospital within which they accomplished their role. Their focus on maintaining relationships created a tension with the hierarchical structure of the hospital.

Head nurses enjoyed their role as head nurses and saw themselves as important to the hospital. Their focus on building and maintaining relationships may be a hallmark of the successful manager of the 1990's.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: B, page: 1349.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1991.

School code: 0055.