Abstract
Nursing is an essential component of all healthcare services, with the potential to have a significant and long-term impact on health outcomes for the world's ageing population. As their professional behaviour plays a major role in improving the quality of patient care, this study was conducted to determine the professional behaviour of nurses. A descriptive and cross-sectional study design was selected with fifty nurses working in a selected teaching hospital who were selected using convenient sampling technique. The Behavioural Inventory for Professionalism in Nursing (BIPN) was used to determine the professional behaviour of nurses. The inventory has a total possible composite score of 27. All of the items were dichotomous and questioned about the nurse's actions in the last two years. The autonomy and research were the areas where nurses receive the lowest mean ratings from the BIPN subscales. The nurse's mean scores in the areas of competence and continuous education (mean = 1.97), educational preparedness (mean = 1.87) and application of theory (mean = 1.73) were the highest with the mean total score from BIPN was 10.44± 3.55. The results showed that age, gender, nurses' role, their years of experience and educational status had a statistically significant association with professional behaviour. Hence, the ways to improve the professional behaviour among nurses to be investigated and must be supported to uplift the image of nursing and the quality of patient care.
Highlights
Professionalism is defined as an individual's level of commitment to the ideals and behavioural characteristics of a given career identity [1]
The results showed that age, gender, nurses' role, their years of experience and educational status had a statistically significant association with professional behaviour
The self administered tool consisted of 2 sections; Section A: The socio-demographic characteristics of the Participants and Section B: The Behavioural Inventory for Professionalism in Nursing (BIPN) which was used to determine the professional behaviour of nurses
Summary
Professionalism is defined as an individual's level of commitment to the ideals and behavioural characteristics of a given career identity [1]. Professionalism refers to attitudes that show a strong identification with and devotion to a certain profession [2]. Professionalism in nursing has centred on the role of nursing expansion in the continually changing healthcare environment. Nursing as a profession has been shaped by social, cultural, scientific, and technical factors [1]. In today's contemporary health and social care practice, patients’ expectations of being cared for by a nurse who is caring, competent, and professional are significant. Nursing professionalism shows how nurses perceive their work and serves as a guide for nurses' inpractice behaviours in order to maintain patient safety and quality care [3]
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