The Influence of Different Leadership Styles on the Performance of Informed Consent in Nursing Care

Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Kiyoko Okubo, RN, MS , Department of Nursing, Fukui-ken Saiseikai Hospital, Fukui, Japan
Tomoko Hasegawa, PhD, RN, MPH , Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Fumi Oguchi, MSN , Department of Nursing, University of Fukui Hospital, Fukui, Japan
Masako Fujii, MAN , Department of Nursing, University of Fukui Hospital, Fukui, Japan
Reiko Ueki, MSN , Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Yoshiko Uehara, MSN, RN , Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Momoe Sasaki, BS, RN , Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Eiichi Ueno, PhD, RN , Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Chie Ogasawara, PhD, RN , School of Nursing, Hiroshima International University, Hiroshima, Japan
Edmont C. Katz, MA, TESOL/Linguistics , Faculty of Medical Sciences, Applied Linguistics, University of Fukui, Sakai, Fukui, Japan

Learning Objective 1: The leaner will be able to clarify the prevalence of informed consent in Japan.

Learning Objective 2: The leaner will be able to clarify the influence of leadership styles on prevalence of informed consent in Japan.

Purpose

The aim of this study was to clarify the influence of different leadership styles on informed consent (oral or written) for nursing cares.

Subjects and Methods

The subjects were 1148 nurses in Fukui prefecture who agreed to participate in this study. A questionnaire was delivered to the subjects and returned anomalously to the researchers. The purpose and ethical considerations were explained on the face sheet of the questionnaire.

The questionnaire included 3 parts: a) demographic data, b) prevalence of informed consent, and c) nursing supervisor's leadership characteristics. The prevalence of informed consent was measured by 4 subcategories: knowledge, attitude, decisions, and performance of informed consent in nursing care. The supervisor's leadership characteristics were classified into 4 types based on degree of leadership functions: PM (strong performance and maintenance), Pm (strong performance and weak maintenance), mP (weak performance and strong maintenance), and pm (weak performance and maintenance). The nurses' prevalence of informed consent was compared among the 4 types of leadership.

Results

The average age of the subjects was 32.7Žm9.6 years, and the average clinical experience was 10.9Žm9.3 years. About 76 % of the subjects regularly conducted informed consent for nursing cares. The subjects under the PM leadership type showed more knowledge, positive attitude, positive decisions, and performance on informed consent than those who were under the pm types (p<0.001).

Discussion and Conclusions

This study demonstrated that it is important to strengthen both performance and maintenance leadership functions of nursing supervisors.