Purpose: In light of the nursing shortage; effective work groups may be a means to achieve quality of care. Study purposes are to describe which group nurses feel most apart of and whether effective work group practices (leadership, communication, collaboration, commitment and professionalism) differ by nurses'assignment patterns.
Theoretical Framework: Work group effectiveness, derived from systems theory, describes group composition, affects on group processes and quality of group interactions (Helmreich & Foushee, 1993).
Subjects: Convenience sample of 146 nurses (response rate 54%) working on medical-surgical units. Nurses’ average age was 38.7 (SD=11.33) years, with 9.7 (SD=9.33) years of experience. Almost 55% of nurses had a BSN and 68% worked full time.
Method: A descriptive comparative design using survey methodology.
Results: The majority of nurses reported that they feel most apart of nurses working on their nursing unit (n=100; 69.4%), while 25% (n=36) feel most apart of nurses working on their shift, and 5.6% feel most apart of nurses working in the nursing department. More than half of nurses (n=81, 55.9%) reported that they typically work the same shift. Using Chi-square, differences exist between nurses who work the same shift and those who do not and their perception of which group they feel most apart of. Comparing nurses who do and do not work the same shift, there were differences in their perceptions of unit leadership, group commitment and accuracy of communications. There were no differences between groups on collaboration, professionalism, and openness and timeliness of communication.
Conclusion: In this preliminary study, nurses identified primarily with nurses on their units. The group that nurses feel most apart of and their work group practices differed by assignment patterns. Understanding the influence of modifiable factors that characterize effective work groups may be one way to achieve quality care.
Session #1202 - Professional Nursing Practice
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)