RELATIONSHIPS AMONG STAFF NURSES' BELIEFS, NURSING PRACTICE AND UNIT ETHOS.
Contributors: Ohio State University.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 263
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The problem investigated was the relationships among staff nurses' beliefs about nursing practice and unit ethos, their actual nursing tasks and practices, and the ethos of the nursing unit.

This descriptive field study used questionnaires, structured interviews, non-participant and participant observations, and relevant documents. The study population was fifteen female staff nurses working day shift on a medical-surgical unit in a university-affiliated hospital.

Themes of agreement emerged from examination of data. They were: the nurses practiced in self-imposed isolation as primary nurses with a strong emphasis on task completion and were proud of the care provided; the unit staff related to each other as a family unit; the nurse manager's leadership style maintained unit norms and expectations and promoted nurse retention; there was little communication or sharing of knowledge between nurses and other health care providers and minimal emphasis on staff education; and, there was no felt need to be creative or to change the way they functioned. Two themes indicating differences among beliefs, practice and ethos were discovered. First, nurse and hospital goals were perceived to be in conflict. The nurses' concern was patient care and they felt the hospital's concern was cost containment. Second, the family model in which good care for all patients was valued, conflicted with the primary nursing model in which each nurse's goal was to provide the best care possible for her primary patients.

In contrast to nurses' beliefs, professionalization was not developed by use of the primary nursing model, and the passive learning environment and family type relationships hindered the nurses' growth and development personally and in the larger system. The nurses did not identify with the larger organization. The nurses unknowingly perpetuated behaviors which continued their subservience and lack of power and status. They have not developed a group identity which encompasses political strategies. The study proposed that primary nursing be reevaluated, nurses' work include interdisciplinary and collaborative activities, and nurses be expected to become leaders in the provision of patient care.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-11, Section: B, page: 5243.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, 1990.

School code: 0168.