PATIENT PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION: CONTRIBUTIONS OF FIELD-DEPENDENCY, PROBLEM COMPLEXITY AND ORIENTATION.
Contributors: University of Colorado, Boulder.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 363
Subjects: Education, Educational Psychology.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: A repeated measure 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design and verbal protocol analysis were used to investigate (a) the interactions among problem identification and two levels of field orientation (FO), problem complexity (PC), and problem orientation (PO) and (b) the strategies used by field-dependent (FD) and field-independent (FI) nurses to identify patient problems.

It was reasoned that FIs would be better than FDs at identifying complex problems and FDs would be better than FIs at identifying problems related to social components of a situation. Sixty-four staff-level pediatric nurses from four states completed three measures: the DDS, a questionnaire eliciting information regarding education and experience; the PII, a measure consisting of two vignettes assessing problem identification performance; and the EFT, a standardized measure of field-dependence - independence.

A significant FO x PO interaction sufficiently robust as to permit generalization beyond the PII was found. As expected, FDs were more sensitive to social and FIs to technical components of patient situations. Although a significant PC x PO interaction was found it was not robust when vignette was treated as a random factor and so generalization beyond the PII is hazardous. No other significant main effects or interactions were found between FO, PC, and PO. FDs were significantly older than FIs. Results of analyses of variance with and without age as covariate were not significantly different.

As age, time in nursing and in pediatric nursing increased, significantly fewer technical problems were identified. More technical and fewer social problems were identified as year of graduation became more recent. Level of nursing education was not correlated significantly with problem identification.

Generally, FDs and FIs were similar in number and relevance of cues used, number of cues recalled, and type of additional information requested. When there were significant differences FDs favored social components of the vignettes and FIs the technical. More FDs identified social problems and more FIs technical problems as highest priority.

FIs and FDs did not differ significantly in type or number of strategies used to identify problems. Subjects were self-consistent in using strategies across the PII.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-07, Section: A, page: 1990.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 1989.

School code: 0051.