PURPOSE: This study was a methodological research conducted to develop a clinical ladder system for operating nurses. METHODS: Participants were 20 OR nurses, working in C Hospital, who had a mean tenure of 6 years and 10 months. Data collection consisted of 4 focus group interviews during May and June 2009. The content analysis method of Kim and Lee (1986) was used to analyze the data. Two clinical expert groups consisting of 16 nurses verified the content validity of the preliminary system from September 16 to 26, 2009 using Kim's tool (1999). RESULTS: The final clinical ladder system consisted of goals, core values, and 4 domains of practice related to core values, which were defined as professional value, perioperative nursing practice, education/research, and collaboration/leadership. Eleven nursing competencies and 44 behavior indicators were included in accordance with the 4-step ladder. The 4 operation systems for the clinical ladder system were the promotion system, continuous learning system, reward system, and support system. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that nursing managers need to pay more attention to developing a clinical ladder system for nurses.
Career Mobility ; Data Collection ; Focus Groups ; Learning ; Operating Rooms ; Perioperative Nursing ; Reward

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify clusters of nursing competency, and investigate the influence of reflective thinking, team learning climate, and learning organization building according to nursing competency clusters. METHODS: Participants were 244 clinical nurses who worked in 4 general hospitals in Gwangju Metropolitan City. Data were collected by self-report questionnaires during June and July, 2011. Nursing competency, levels of reflection hierarchy, team learning climate, and learning organization building were measured. Data were analyzed using frequencies, means, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and K-means cluster analysis with SPSS/WIN 20.0 version. RESULTS: Nursing competency correlated positively with intensive reflection, reflection, team learning climate, and learning organization building (p<.001). There were three clusters of nursing competency in a clinical ladder, which were derived from cluster analysis, grouped as high, middle, and low competency. Intensive reflection, reflection, team learning climate, and learning organization building showed significant differences according to grouping of nursing competency. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that developing intensive reflection, reflection, team learning climate, and learning organization building would be useful strategies for enhancement of nursing competency.
Career Mobility ; Climate ; Hospitals, General ; Learning ; Professional Competence ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Thinking

PURPOSE: This study was to evaluate the strengthening process of advanced beginner's nursing competence through the concept mapping methods. METHODS: This study was conducted with focus group study for 1 month from November to December 2012 (n=5). Data were analyzed through open coding, axial coding and selection coding stage. RESULTS: Advanced beginner to represent the experience of nursing empowerment and the three categories of the nine concepts were derived. The first category is 'able to see the entire search.' This concept is to start a search query, the search process of thinking, behavior change is expected. The second category is 'behavior change through the acquisition of knowledge.', and this concept is the embodiment of knowledge, confidence rising, and action changing. The third category is 'nursing empowerment', the aesthetic, ethical, and personal knowledge acquisition, as well as self-growth. CONCLUSION: Advanced beginner saw the full flow through the concept mapping and obtained knowledge, and changed behavior. Thus, the concept mapping is effective to strengthen the nursing competence.
Clinical Coding ; Focus Groups* ; Humans ; Mental Competency* ; Nursing* ; Power (Psychology) ; Thinking

This study has been conducted for the purpose of identifying the levels of knowledge and attitude about dementia, and exploring the degrees of practice and the relationship among these variables in nursing assistants caring institutionalized demented elders. The subjects were 87 formal caregivers from 3 dementia-specialized nursing facilities, 2 dementia-specialized hospitals, 1 general psychiatric hospitals, and 3 general nursing homes. The data were gathered from July 10th to August 5th, 1998 through interviews by questionnaires. The measuring instruments of this study were developed by the researcher and proven for their reliability and validity. The collected data were analyzed using SAS program. 1) The lowest score among 6 sub-areas about practice showed on this subarea of maintenance of remained ADL function, offering stimuli and activities to demented elders was the second. 2) The third hypothesis of "the higher the attitude score they have, the higher the practice score they do" was supported (r=.370, p=.025). 3) The influencing factors significantly on knowledge were educational status, learning experience about taking care of patients, learning experience about dementia during last a year. 4) A factor of the period of taking care demented elders have significantly influenced on the attitude about dementia. 5) The influencing factors significantly on practice were age, marital status, learning experience about taking care of patients, learning experience about dementia during the last a year. 6) The most difficult situation the subjects perceived in taking care of demented elders was managing the aggressive and resistive behaviors of demented elders.
Activities of Daily Living ; Caregivers ; Dementia* ; Educational Status ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Humans ; Learning ; Marital Status ; Nursing Homes ; Nursing* ; Reproducibility of Results ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine the effects of simulation-based education regarding care in a cardio-pulmonary emergency care as related to knowledge, clinical performance ability, and problem solving process in new nurses. METHODS: An equivalent control group pre-post test experimental design was used. Fifty new nurses were recruited, 26 nurses for the experimental group and 24 nurses for the control group. The simulation-based cardio-pulmonary emergency care education included lecture, skill training, team-based practice, and debriefing, and it was implemented with the experimental group for a week in May, 2009. Data were analyzed using frequency, ratio, chi-square, Fisher's exact probability and t-test with the SPSS program. RESULTS: The experimental group who had the simulation-based education showed significantly higher know-ledge (t=5.76, p<.001) and clinical performance ability (t=5.86, p<.001) for cardio-pulmonary emergency care compared with the control group who had traditional education but problem solving process was not included (t=1.11, p=.138). CONCLUSION: The results indicate that a simulation-based education is an effective teaching method to improve knowledge and clinical performance ability in new nurses learning cardio-pulmonary emergency care. Further study is needed to identify the effect of a simulation-based team discussion on cognitive outcome of clinical nurses such as problem solving skills.
Adult ; Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation/*nursing ; *Clinical Competence ; *Competency-Based Education ; Educational Measurement ; Emergency Medical Services ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; *Problem Solving ; Program Evaluation ; Questionnaires ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: To implement evidence-based nursing, it is important to know where and how to find the best available evidence. This study was conducted to identify the results of a search from Ovid MEDLINE and to compare the results from Ovid MEDLINE with those from PubMed MEDLINE. METHODS: Four different approaches via Ovid MEDLINE were used to search for guidelines on preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections. Outcomes of this study were the number of records and relevant literature, and the sensitivity and precision of the search methods via Ovid MEDLINE. RESULTS: The number of retrieved items ranged 23 to 6,005 and that of relevant studies, 5 to 8 of 8. Simple searches resulted in the highest sensitivity of 100.0%. When using MeSH terms and limits feature, the precision was highest (21.7%) among four approaches for literature searches. Simple searches in Ovid had higher sensitivity and lower precision than those in PubMed. CONCLUSION: Simple searches in Ovid may be inefficient for busy clinicians compared to PubMed. However, to ensure a comprehensive and systematic literature search, using Ovid MEDLINE in addition to PubMed is recommended.
Evidence-Based Nursing ; Urinary Catheterization ; Urinary Tract Infections ; Urinary Tract*

PURPOSE: This study was done to develop an instrument for measuring intellectual capital and assess its validity and reliability in identifying the components, human capital, structure capital and customer capital of intellectual capital in hospital nursing organizations. METHODS: The participants were 950 regular clinical nurses who had worked for over 13 months in 7 medical hospitals including 4 national university hospitals and 3 private university hospitals. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey done from July 2 to August 25, 2009. Data from 906 nurses were used for the final analysis. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha coefficients, item analysis, factor analysis (principal component analysis, Varimax rotation) with the SPSS PC+ 17.0 for Windows program. RESULTS: Developing the instrument for measuring intellectual capital in hospital nursing organizations involved a literature review, development of preliminary items, and verification of validity and reliability. The final instrument was in a self-report form on a 5-point Likert scale. There were 29 items on human capital (5 domains), 21 items on customer capital (4 domains), 26 items on structure capital (4 domains). CONCLUSION: The results of this study may be useful to assess the levels of intellectual capital of hospital nursing organizations.
Adult ; Delivery of Health Care/organization & administration ; Health Manpower/organization & administration ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Knowledge Management ; *Nursing Service, Hospital/organization & administration ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/psychology ; Principal Component Analysis ; Questionnaires ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to assess emergency room nurses' knowledge and performance of triage nursing. METHODS: The instrument was developed through the stages of conceptual construction, item development, and validity and reliability testing. For the validity and reliability testing, data collected from 48 emergency room nurses using questionnaires was analyzed through descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and reliability coefficients. RESULTS: The knowledge part consisted of 30 items in nine areas, and its reliability was low (KR-20 =0.50). The correct answer rate was 71.8%. The performance section derived from the factor analysis was composed of two factors with nine items in the triage domain and three factors with 12 items in the non triage domain. The explanatory powers of these factors for the domains were 66.1% and 70.4%, respectively. The overall reliability (Cronbach's alpha) was .95, and the reliabilities for the two domains were .88 and .91, respectively. The nurses' mean performance level was 3.2(+/-0.45). CONCLUSION: The specific contents of the triage nursing work were identified from the developed scale; further research is necessary to in order to develop a scale capable of higher reliability and validity.
Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Nursing* ; Reproducibility of Results ; Triage*

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to explore the variation in perceptions about problem-based learning(PBL) according to the level of academic achievement and learning attitude in the nursing students of a junior college (3-year program). METHOD: Students (n=39) learned the respiratory and cardiac system with seven PBL packages and group-based learning for a semester in 2002. Students were asked to write reflective journals that focused on their learning perception after an experience with each learning package. A total of 208 journals were used for analysis. RESULT: Students positively perceived that PBL making them increase their sense of responsibility for learning and felt satisfaction with the learning process, and had a confidence in the use of clinical nursing interventions. On the other hand, they negatively perceived that PBL was a burden because it took more time than traditional learning tasks, and they experienced an anxiety about regular tests and felt conflicts and diffidences in the learning process. The negative perceptions were expressed more often from students with a low academic achievement and low learning attitude compared to others. CONCLUSION: Students perceived the PBL as effective in understanding the learning concepts in the clinical practice environment. PBL need to be supplemented by feedback-based lecture and facilitative strategies for academically low-achieved students.
Students, Nursing/*psychology ; *Problem-Based Learning ; Humans ; Female ; *Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate ; *Attitude ; Adult

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to identify the effects of an action learning based creative problem-solving (CPS) course on problem solving, creativity and team-member exchange in nursing students. METHODS: A quasi-experimental study applying a non-equivalent control group pre-post design was employed. Sophomore nursing students (32 in the experimental group and 33 in the control group) were recruited from a university in G-city, Korea. Problem solving, creativity and team-member exchange were measured for the pretest and posttest using self-report questionnaires. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Chi-square, Fisher's exact test, t-test, and ANCOVA with SPSS/Win 20.0 program were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The scores for problem solving, creativity and team-member exchange in the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group. CONCLUSION: Results of this study indicate that an action learning based CPS course is an effective teaching method to improve nursing students' competencies. In the future longitudinal studies are needed to assess the long term effects of the course.
Creativity ; Humans ; Korea ; Learning* ; Longitudinal Studies ; Nursing ; Problem Solving ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Students, Nursing* ; Teaching