Investigation And Analysis On The Leadership Skill Needs Of Charge Nurse

Objective:1. To investigate the leadership skill needs of charge nurses about secondary-first and third class hospitals in Sichuan province.2. To investigate charge nurses' need degree to these kinds of leadership skills, and provide evidences for confirming training contents.3. To analyze the influence factors of the leadership skills needs of charge nurses, and provide evidences for training charge nurses.Methods:The tool used in this study was adopted from a 5-point Likert-type scale designed by Kathy Mathena to measure the leadership skills need. We investigated 401 charge nurses, including 180 charge nurses in 6 third class hospitals, and 221 charge nurses in 15 secondary-first class hospitals. We first translated and revised the scale, then tested the reliability and validity of the scale. With the modified scale, we investigated 401 charge nurses in Sichuan Province. We analyzed all the results by SPSS 11.0 soft.Results:1. The needs on leadership skills were: the interpersonal skills (3.87 + 0.901), the financial skills (3.78 + 0.894), the staff development (3.74 ± 0.912), the technical skills (3.71+0.881), the resource management (3.67± 0.916), the clinical skills (3.45 + 0.967), the general skills (3.37±0.981) and the political skills (3.02 + 0.889).2. In the 71 individual skills, the highest ten skills were: change management (M=4.03), empowerment (M=3.97), conflict resolution (M=3.86), mediation (M=3.69), clinical expertise (M=3.97), performance improvement (M=3.74), stewardship (M=3.8), time management (M=3.74), cost containment (M=3.91), and counseling (M=3.41).The lowest ten skills were: stakeholder analysis (M=2.46), developing role as spokesperson (M=2.79), environmental scanning (M=3.17), managing patient flow through (M=2.77), computer literacy (M=3.01), building relationships (M=3.17), participating in meetings (M=3.11), financial projections (M=3.13), achieving compromise (M=3.17), and achieving balance between work and home (M=3.23).3. The analyses of the factors influencing these leadership skills needs:3.1 The factors influencing the interpersonal skills need include years as a charge nurse (P = -0.195), management level(P =0.223), and educational preparation 3 =-0.042).3.2 The factors influencing the clinical skills need include management level( P =-0.055) and educational preparation P =-0.099).3.3 The factors influencing the technical skills need include hospital level( P = 0.0154), educational preparation 3 =-0.0017), hospital field( P =-0.0115)and management level( P =-0.0138).3.4 The factors influencing the financial skills need include years as a charge nurse(P =-0.180), management level(P =-0.213) and the hospital level(P =0.143).3.5 The factors influencing the staff development and resource management need is management level( fl =0.039).4. The layered analyses of the factors influencing leadership skills need:4.1 The technical and financial skills needs of charge nurse are different between the third class hospitals and secondary-first hospitals(t &=3.056, P<0.05;t?=3.026,P<0.05).4.2 The interpersonal, clinical, technical, financial, staff development and resource management skills needs of charge nurses are different between middle level nurse managers and primary level nurse managers (P<0.05).4.3 The needs of the interpersonal and financial skills of the charge nurses whose years as a manager less than 5 years are much more than others' needs.4.4 The interpersonal skills, clinical and technical skills need of charge nurse are different between the secondary nursing education and other educational preparation (PO.05).4.5 The technical skills need of charge nurse is different between the middle regions and other four regions.Conclusions:1. The charge nurses' need degree to these kinds of leadership skills are different, which suggest that some leadership skills should be the emphases in training content.2. The charge nurses who have a higher leadership skills need should be the first objects of training.3. The educational preparation of the charge nurses affects the acquirement and understands of the complex skills and abstract concepts, which suggest that we should improve the educational preparation of the charge nurses and provide them more chances of proceeding education and training.4. The needs of leadership skills among five regions are different, which suggest that we should take more attention to those regions with more needs.Suggestions for further study:1. The study on the relationship between the need of leadership skills and the age of charge nurse.2. Program the training protocol of leadership skills for charge nurses.3. The study on the relationship between leadership skills and the performance of charge nurse.