Development of a scale for nurses to assess their own shift leadership behaviours and factors associated with shift leadership behaviours.

Abstract

Nursing is a mentally and physically demanding job and the industry is particularly strained in Japan. Assistant Professor Hiroko Kitajima, Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Medical and Welfare Saitama Prefectural University, Japan, believes improving nurses' time management skills would be beneficial for the work-life balance and mental health of nurses, as well as patient care. Kitajima is filling a research gap with her work as there is a lack of research on the leadership ability of work zone leaders, aka non-titled nurses that assume responsibility. She and her team have developed a scale for nurses to assess their own shift leadership behaviours and factors associated with shift leadership behaviours called the 'Nurse's Work Shift Leadership Behavior Evaluation Scale' and are verifying the reliability and validity of the scale in a project called 'Development of Nurses' Work Zone Leadership Evaluation Scale and Factors Affecting Work Zone Leadership'. Important collaborators on this research are Professor Eiko Suzuki, Assistant Professor Maki Matsuo and Assistant Professor Takae Machida. The researchers are adapting an existing scale called the Development of the Self-evaluation Scale on Role Performance of Shift Leader Nurse' that was developed by Yamashina et. al. in 2011 and are focused on reducing the number of items and using the Katz model, which outlines three key personal skill sets for successful leaders: technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Ultimately, Kitajima and the team are developing a programme based on empirical research that promotes the leadership of nurses in the work zone.