PURPOSE: This study was done to explore the relationship in hospital nurses' of communication competence, communication types, and organizational commitment and to provide basic data for developing programs to improve internal communication and to promote nurses' commitment to their organizations. METHODS: The participants included 316 nurses who worked in two general hospitals. The tools used for this study were the Global Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (GICC) and Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire by Downs & Hazen (1981), revised by Seo (2002) and Mowday's tool (1979) for organizational commitment. Data were analyzed using SPSS/PC+12.0. RESULTS: The mean score for communication competence was 3.46, and for organizational commitment, 3.19. For communication types, the mean score for formal communication was 3.18 and informal communication, 2.59. Communication competence had a positive relationship with formal communication (r=.32) and with informal communication (r=.16). Organizational commitment had a positive relationship with formal communication (r=.53), communication competence (r=.30), and informal communication (r=.27). CONCLUSION: The results indicate the necessity of developing programs to promote nurses' communication competence and also developing a system that will enrich active communication. Systematic and continuous training in communication is also highly recommended.
Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Mental Competency ; Nursing Staff ; Organization and Administration ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was aimed at (a) describing professional nursing practice environments embedded in nursing care units and (b) examining its relationships to nurses' task motivation. METHOD: Using the Nursing Work Index Revised (NWI-R) and the Work Preference Inventory (WPI), a descriptive study was conducted with a sample of 320 registered nurses on 26 nursing care units in one University hospital in Korea. RESULT: Mean scores were 12.9 on a 5-20 score range of an autonomous environment scale, 7.3 on a 3-12 score range of a collaborative environment, and 15.8 on a 7-28 score range of control over nursing practice. Nurses' age, educational level, job position, working period at the hospital and employment status were significantly related to the degree of a professional practice environment. The extent to which a professional practice environment accounted for task motivation was 19.5%. CONCLUSION: There is a certain degree of professionalism in the workplace environment that nurses perceived within the nursing care units. When nurses care for patients, the degree of task motivation depends on the work environment supporting the professional nursing practice.
*Organizational Culture ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/*psychology ; Nursing Service, Hospital/*organization & administration ; *Motivation ; Male ; Korea ; *Job Satisfaction ; Humans ; Female ; Adult

PURPOSE: This study was designed to create a job description for Korean geriatric care managers and examine performance frequency, importance, and difficulty of task elements. METHOD: The sample consisted of 38 geriatric care managers and professors who performed duties related to geriatric care management at community based-facilities in Korea. A survey method was used, and the questionnaire included frequency, importance, and difficulty of task elements in job descriptions using the DACUM method. Using SPSS WIN 10.0, descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, means, and standard deviation were conducted to examine the subject's general characteristics, frequency, importance, and difficulties of task performance. RESULT: The job descri ption of geriatric care managers revealed 10 duties, 34 tasks, and 105 task elements. On all ten duties, the average performance frequency, importance, and difficulty was 2.55, 2.21 and 2.43 respectively. CONCLUSION: The job description of geriatric care managers includes duty, task, and task elements and the definition of a completed job. Thus we recommend a data based trial to confirm and validate the information gathered.
Adult ; Female ; Geriatric Nursing/*organization & administration ; Humans ; *Job Description ; Korea ; Male ; Nursing Staff ; *Task Performance and Analysis ; Workload

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a substantive theory of case management (CM) practice by investigating the experience of nurse case managers caring for Medical Aid enrollees in Korea. METHODS: A total of 12 nurses were interviewed regarding their own experience in CM practice. Data were recorded and analyzed using grounded theory. RESULTS: Empowerment was the core category of CM for Medical Aid enrollees. The case managers engaged in five phases as follows, phase of inquiring in advance, building a relationship with the client, giving the client critical mind, facilitating positive changes in the client's use of healthcare services, and maintaining relationship bonds. These phases moved gradually and were circular if necessary. Also, they were accelerated or slowed depending on factors including clients' characteristics, case managers' competency level, families' support level, and availability of community resources. CONCLUSION: This study helps understand what CM practice is and how nurses are performing this innovative CM role. It is recommended that nurse leaders and policy makers integrate empowerment as a core category and the five critical CM phases into future CM programs.
Adult ; Case Management/*organization & administration ; Community Health Nursing ; Female ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; Korea ; Managed Care Programs ; Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Staff/*organization & administration ; Power (Psychology)

PURPOSE: This study was to determine the mediator or moderator role of empowerment in the relationship between the head nurse's transformational leadership and organizational commitment as perceived by staff nurses. METHODS: Data was collected from 451 nurses in a tertiary hospital located in B city by means of structured questionnaires. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficient and hierarchial multiple regression using the SPSS program. RESULTS: Empowerment showed mediating effects between the head nurse's transformational leadership and organizational commitment as perceived by staff nurses. However, empowerment did not show moderating effects. CONCLUSION: Nurses' perception of empowerment, the head nurse's transformational leadership and organizational commitment have a strong relationship. This finding suggests the importance of empowering nurses to increase organizational commitment.
Adult ; Decision Making, Organizational ; Female ; Humans ; *Leadership ; Nurse Administrators/organization & administration/*psychology ; Nursing Administration Research ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/organization & administration/*psychology ; Personnel Loyalty ; Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of job satisfaction of hospital nurses. The focus was on work rewards. A causal model of job satisfaction of hospital nurses was constructed based on situational perspectives. METHODS: The sample for this study consisted of 505 nurses from 2 general hospitals located in Seoul and Kyeonggi Province, Korea. Data were collected with self-administrated questionnaires and analyzed by hierarchical multiple regression. RESULTS: All variables except workload were positively correlated with job satisfaction. It was found that three task reward variables (workload, meaning, and participation), two organizational reward variables (security and promotional chances) and one social reward variable (family support) had significant influence on nurses' job satisfaction. The explained variance for job satisfaction was 41.4%. The data further indicate that task rewards were the most significant determinants of nurse job satisfaction. CONCLUSION: Theses findings provide strong empirical evidence for importance of task, organizational and social reward variables in explaining job satisfaction of nurses. The model used for this study will be useful for predicting nurse job satisfaction.
Attitude of Health Personnel ; Humans ; *Job Satisfaction ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/organization & administration/*psychology ; Questionnaires ; *Reward ; Salaries and Fringe Benefits ; Social Support ; Workload

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 a balanced scorecard (BSC) for performance measurement of a Korean hospital nursing organization and to evaluate the validity and reliability of performance measurement indicators. METHOD: Two hundred fifty-nine nurses in a Korean hospital participated in a survey questionnaire that included 29-item performance evaluation indicators developed by investigators of this study based on the Kaplan and Norton's BSC (1992). Cronbach's alpha was used to test the reliability of the BSC. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with a structure equation model (SEM) was applied to assess the construct validity of the BSC. RESULT: Cronbach's alpha of 29 items was .948. Factor analysis of the BSC showed 5 principal components (eigen value >1.0) which explained 62.7% of the total variance, and it included a new one, community service. The SEM analysis results showed that 5 components were significant for the hospital BSC tool. CONCLUSION: High degree of reliability and validity of this BSC suggests that it may be used for performance measurements of a Korean hospital nursing organization. Future studies may consider including a balanced number of nurse managers and staff nurses in the study. Further data analysis on the relationships among factors is recommended.
Adult ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Hospitals ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Nursing Evaluation Research ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/organization & administration/*standards ; Questionnaires ; Task Performance and Analysis ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of strategies to promote reporting of errors on nurses' attitude to reporting errors, organizational culture related to patient safety, intention to report and reporting rate in hospital nurses. METHODS: A nonequivalent control group non-synchronized design was used for this study. The program was developed and then administered to the experimental group for 12 weeks. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, chi-square-test, t-test, and ANCOVA with the SPSS 12.0 program. RESULTS: After the intervention, the experimental group showed significantly higher scores for nurses' attitude to reporting errors (experimental: 20.73 vs control: 20.52, F=5.483, p=.021) and reporting rate (experimental: 3.40 vs control: 1.33, F=1998.083, p<.001). There was no significant difference in some categories for organizational culture and intention to report. CONCLUSION: The study findings indicate that strategies that promote reporting of errors play an important role in producing positive attitudes to reporting errors and improving behavior of reporting. Further advanced strategies for reporting errors that can lead to improved patient safety should be developed and applied in a broad range of hospitals.
Adult ; Attitude of Health Personnel ; Humans ; Internet ; Medical Errors/*nursing/prevention & control ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/organization & administration/*psychology ; Organizational Culture ; Patient Care ; Program Evaluation ; Questionnaires ; Risk Management ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: This study was done to evaluate the experience of securing patient safety in hospital operating rooms. METHODS: Experiential data were collected from 15 operating room nurses through in-depth interviews. The main question was "Could you describe your experience with patient safety in the operating room?". Qualitative data from the field and transcribed notes were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory methodology. RESULTS: The core category of experience with patient safety in the operating room was 'trying to maintain principles of patient safety during high-risk surgical procedures'. The participants used two interactional strategies: 'attempt continuous improvement', 'immersion in operation with sharing issues of patient safety'. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the important factors for ensuring the safety of patients in the operating room are manpower, education, and a system for patient safety. Successful and safe surgery requires communication, teamwork and recognition of the importance of patient safety by the surgical team.
Adult ; Attitude of Health Personnel ; Female ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; Male ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/*psychology ; Operating Room Nursing/organization & administration/*standards ; Patient Safety/*standards