Influencing factors and demand analysis of 1 086 clinical frontline nurses' thesis writing in He'nan Province

Abstract

Objective To investigate the influencing factors and demand of clinical frontline nurses' thesis writing in He'nan Province providing a theoretical basis for improving the clinical nurses' thesis writing willingness and level. Methods From May 2015 to May 2016, a self-designed questionnaire was used to survey 1 200 clinical nursing staff from 12 hospitals in He'nan Province by Lottery method and random number table method for general information, hinder factors of thesis writing, and the assist and guidance needed in thesis writing. The descriptive analysis, Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test, independent sample t-test, single factor analysis of variance, linear correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the influencing factors of nurses' paper writing. Results A total of 1 086 effective questionnaires were recycled. The differences of number of papers wrote by nurses who were different in hospital level, marital status, age, nursing age, work intensity, professional title, and final education were statistically significant (H=16.293, 206.350, 31.775, 56.393, 136.605, 484.600, 48.913; P<0.05) . Hospital level, age, nursing age, marital status, professional title, and final education were all positively correlated with the number of papers (r=0.119, 0.161, 0.215, 0.410, 0.639, 0.093; P<0.01) , while work intensity was negatively correlated (r=-0.367, P<0.01) . The scores of five dimensions of factor hindering the thesis writing from high to low were lack of thesis writing skills (16.16±2.37) , literature search obstacles (15.14±2.47) , lack of statistical software operation (15.49±1.72) , clinical sensitivity of problems identifying (14.63±2.74) and poor data collection methods (13.27±2.14) . Multiple linear regression analysis showed that hospital level, professional title, nursing age and final education level were the main factors that impeded the writing of clinical nurses, which explained 93.1% of the total variation. The main thesis writing training needs were research topic selection and project design, paper writing methods and skill training, and hospital policy support. Conclusions Thesis writing number by Class Ⅲ hospital nursing staff was higher than that by Class Ⅱ hospital in He'nan Province. Nursing age, title and final education level were the main factors hindering the clinical nurses from thesis writing. Hospital managers needs to train clinical nurses on paper writing according to the medical system of our country. Key words: Cross-sectional studies; Questionnaires; Nurses; Research article; Writing