This study is to verify the existence of correlation between professional self-concept and clinical performance of Nurse in ICU and, thereby, re-establish the importance of their professional self-concept in order to provide groundwork data that can b...
This study is to verify the existence of correlation between professional self-concept and clinical performance of Nurse in ICU and, thereby, re-establish the importance of their professional self-concept in order to provide groundwork data that can be used for the improvement of clinical performance ability and the quality of work of Nurse in ICU and the development of the expertise of nurses.
This study was performed using Nurse in ICU in five general hospitals of more than 500 beds in Chungcheong province as subjects for 15 days from Sep. 20 until Oct. 5, 2008.
For data collection, structured questionnaires were used. Investigators visited Nurse Department of each hospital to submit application for the permission for data collection and explain about the study before distributing the questionnaires. Total 196 questionnaires (93.3%) out of 210 distributed were collected after 15 days. 190 returned questionnaires excluding 6 containing unusable data were finally screened for use for the study.
For the measurement of profession self-concept, a revised and supplemented version of the Profession Self-concept of Nurse Instrument (PSCNI) developed by Arthur (1990) translated by CH Noh and KA Song (1993) was used. In this study, the reliability expressed as Cronbach's α value was .893.
Clinical Performance Examination for Critical Care Nurses by Mims(1988) and translated by YO Kim(2006) was used for the measurement of clinical performance ability. In this study, the reliability expressed as Cronbach's α value was .98.
Collected data was analyzed with SPSS Win 12.0 to evaluate general characteristics, professional self-concept and clinical performance ability using descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, average and standard deviations. Correlation between variables was analyzed using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient and t-test or ANOVA, Scheffe test was used to examine the difference of each variable for general characteristics.
The reliability of measurement tools was calculated using Cronbach's α.
The results of the study are as follows:
1) Average age of the subject Nurse in the ICU was 28.46. Subjects were mostly unmarried (68.4%), had no religion (41.6%) and college graduates (57.4%). The subject Nurse in the ICU had clinical experience of 6.14 years in average. 42.6% had less than 4 years experience. They had average 4.27 years of experience in ICU and more than half of all subjects (57.9%) had less than 4 years of experience in ICU. The type of medical institutes they worked was mostly university hospital (78.9%) and most (39.5%) of them worked in the nursing unit in surgery-ICU.
2) Average score of professional self-concept was 65.5 out of 100 and average grade was 2.62 out of 4. Average grade for each element of professional self-concept showed highest score in the area of communication (2.81) followed by professional practice (2.68) and satisfaction (2.41).
3) Comparing professional self-concept for each general characteristic of subjects, significant difference (p<.05) was found in age, marriage status, clinical experience and working experience. The older group, married group, or the group of clinical experience of more than 7 years showed high degree of professional self-concept.
4) Clinical performance ability of the subjects was evaluated in 4 areas using 169 questions in performance ability elements in 23 performance abilities, of which results are as follows: Clinical performance ability represented by average score was highest in the area of Clinical/Professional Skill (3.44± .63) followed by Patient Assesment area (3.29± .54), Communication area (3.26± .55) and documentation area (3.16± .46). Performance capability was higher than average in all four areas.
5) The needs of Nurse in the ICU for education in the areas of Patient Assesment and Clinical/Professional Skill were evaluated. In Patient Assessment area, 178 subjects (93.7%) replied that they need education on pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases assessment indicating the area of highest need for education. The areas of next highest need for education were, in order of, gastrointestinal assessment replied by 172 subjects (90.5%), neurologic assessment replied by 168 subjects (88.4%), renal/metabolic system assessment replied by 150 subjects (78.9%) and musculoskeletal assessment replied by 149 subjects (78.4%).
In Clinical/Professional Skill area, 172 subjects (90.5%) replied that they need education on hematologic monitoring indicating the area of highest need for education. The areas of next highest need for education were, in order of, vein treatment replied by 158 subjects (83.2%), safety maintenance replied by 156 subjects (82.1%), open wound dressing replied by 155 subjects (81.6%), ventilator care system replied by 149 subjects (78.4%) medication nursing replied by 147 subjects (77.4%), peripheral IV/artery system replied by 141 subjects (74.2%), L-tube feeding replied by 141 subjects (74.2%), TPN replied by 139 subjects (73.2%), body nursing replied by 139 subjects (73.2%) and fluid therapy replied by 130 subjects (68.4%). In all areas, more than half of the subjects replied that they needed education.
6) The clinical performance ability for each general characteristic showed statistically significant difference depending on age, marital status, working experience and experience in ICU. Clinical performance ability was higher when the subject is older, married, and had longer work experience. There was no statistically significant difference in the clinical performance ability of ICU NRs depending on religion, education level, type of medical institute and department (p>.05).
7) Professional self-concept and clinical performance ability of the subjects showed statistically significant correlation (r =.443, p =.000) indicating that clinical performance ability was higher as professional self-concept was higher.
In conclusion, the subject Nurse in ICU showed middle-to-high level of professional self-concept and clinical performance ability and it was found that professional self-concept is an important factor for clinical performance ability. Therefore, education program has to be developed and implemented to improve professional self-concept in order to cultivate expertise of nurses. Also, in order to improve work efficiency of nurses and provide qualified nursing service, education programs on the jobs of nurses have to be actively implemented to help Nurse in
ICU acquire both empirical and theoretic knowledge to improve clinical performance ability and active policy for educational motivation should be practised.