Sağlık ve Hemşirelik Yönetimi Dergisi (Sep 2016)
The Perceptions of Nurse Managers on Their Critical Thinking Skills and Research Utilization Barriers and Facilitators
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Because of quick and correct decision making process in nursing practice, nursing profession needs nurse managers who both have critical thinking skills and responsibity from utilization of research results. This study aims to determine nurse managers' perceptions regarding critical thinking skills and research utilization barriers and facilitators. METHODS: A descriptive research design was used in this study and the sampling size consisted of 220 nurse managers working in two university hospitals, six public hospitals and two private hospitals in Ankara, in Turkey, during January, 2013. Research data were collected by using a questionnaire form including questions related to demographic and professional information of nurse managers, the Scale of Research Utilization Barriers and the Scale of Critical Thinking Disposition. Descriptive statistics, t-tests for independent groups, one-way ANOVA test and the Pearson Correlation analysis were applied for data analysis. RESULTS: According to the results of critical thinking scale points, the nurse managers have low level of critical thinking skills (219.00+-19.82). In addition, 'nurse factor' was found as the highest level of barrier perceived by the nurse managers for the implementation of the research. Besides, 30.4% of the nurse managers stated that optimization of the professional and environmental conditions to conduct research and to utilize research results is the most important facilitator. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The research results revealed that the nurse managers have a low level of critical thinking skills and the primary barrier for research utilization is the nurse factor which is caused by nurses themselves according to nurse managers. Thus, nurse managers should be trained in order to develop their critical thinking skills. They should also use their authorized power in line with job descriptions defined in reletaed regulations so as to design the required conditions for research-based applications.
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