The Caring Experiences of Nurses and Job Satisfaction in Registered Nurses

Monday, 22 July 2013

Carol Reid, PhD, MAppSc, GradCertHlth, (Sexual, Health), BHSc(N), RN
Research and Development Unit, Centre for Clinical Nursing, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia
Cameron Hurst, PhD
Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine,, Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University., Khon Kaen, Thailand
Mary Courtney, PhD, MHP, BAdmin (Acc), RN
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia
Debra J. Anderson, RN, BA, GDNS (ed), MN, PhD
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to understand that education programmes aimed at developing strategies to improve self-efficacy in nurses may result in better job satisfaction.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify that nurses with high levels of perceived self-efficacy have the capacity to develop caring relations with patients.

Purpose:

The purpose of the study was to examine relationships between socio-demographic variables, job satisfaction and nurses’ caring experiences in a registered nurse population, as measured by the caring efficacy scale (CES) which was developed from Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Watson’s transpersonal caring theory.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken of nurses representing a variety of nursing specialties. A stratified random sample of registered nurses, who were members of a professional nursing organisation, was invited to participate in this study.  Descriptive analyses, correlation analyses, one- way ANOVA tests, simple linear regression and multivariable analyses were conducted to examine if any relationships existed between these variables.

Results:

There were a total of 639 respondents to the national survey. The respondents (100%) showed positive perceived CES scores and 80.8% showed positive job satisfaction scores. Correlation analysis found age, years experience as a registered nurse and years in current job, all positively correlated with each other, (r >0.40: p < 0.001). CES scores were found to be positively correlated with age, years of experience as a registered nurse (r>0.1: p < 0.001) and job satisfaction (r>0.1: p < 0.001). An ANOVA found significant positive relationships between CES scores and age (p=0.05).

Conclusion:

Results from this study have identified that relationships between age, years of experience, job satisfaction and the perceived caring experiences of nurses’ exist. Organisational leaders may develop strategies for professional development and orientation programmes that enhance the caring experiences of nurses to provide quality patient care. The development of programmes that provide role modelling, emotional support or use verbal persuasion are needed where encouragement is required for nurses to master new skills. This may also improve job satisfaction and retention of nurses in the workplace in the current economically focussed healthcare system.

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