NURSING MANGERS VIEWS OF THE EDUCATIONAL HOSPITALS OF KERMAN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES REGARDING BARRIERS OF NURSES’ ROLES PERFORMANCE

Clinical nurses perform different roles in helping patients. Optimal performance
of nurses in their clinical roles have always been encountered with several barriers. Awareness of
nursing managers of these barriers has considerable impact on planning strategies to eliminate these
barriers and thus improving the quality of nursing services. This study aims to investigate nursing
manager’s opinions on barriers of clinical nurse’s role.
Materials & Methods: In a descriptive – analytical study, 101 manager of educational hospitals of
Kerman University of Medical Sciences were selected using consensus method. Data collection tool
was a questionnaire consisted of demographic characteristics and barriers to nurse’s clinical role. Data
analysis was done using SPSS V16, by applying descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: In this study, 85.1% of study subjects were female, 75.2% were married, 93.1 % had bachelor
degree, and 64.4% were head nurses. The study participants were aged between 28-51 years (mean
43.01±4.68). They have the work experience of 7-30 years, and their management work experience
was between 1-25 years. The averages of manger’s opinion showed that the most important barriers
were related to job security (68.9%), motivational factors at work environment (64%), factors related
to management and leadership (63.4%), factors related to patient and caregiver’s believes (51.2%),
nurse’s personal believes (49.75%) and the gap between theory and practice (47.5%). Weak
association was found between gender and job security factors (r=0.3), as well as poor association
between nurse’s personal believes and gender (r=0.3), age (r=0.16), and marital status (r=0.5),
respectively. There was a weak correlation between marital status and the gap between theory and
practice (r=0.23). Other demographic characteristics did not show any correlation with nurse’s role
barriers. ANOVA test results showed that there were significant difference between the opinions of
the three levels of managers (head nurse, supervisor, and metron) in term of job security, personal
believes of patients and caregivers and nurse’s personal believes(p<0.05).
Conclusion: The study found that the main barriers to nurse’s clinical role from nursing manager
perspective were related to job security, workplace motivational factors and factors related to
management and leadership. Therefore it is recommended that by planning actions such as timely
payment of wages and benefits, improved working conditions and increased nursing facilities as well
as modification or adjustment of their management styles, the managers could remove these barriers
and thus improve the quality of nursing services