BUTLER, PATRICIA WITTLE MITCHELL; PHD
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1986
HEALTH SCIENCES, NURSING (0569)
Funding for nursing research has increased the number of studies but no corresponding
increase in
application of research has occurred. To have an impact on health care delivery,
organizations must
rapidly diffuse research innovations throughout their systems to the practitioner.
The purpose of this
study was twofold: (1) to discover Embedding-Diffusion (ED) mechanisms that
facilitate the diffusion of
innovations through the hospital nursing department, and (2) to examine the
relationship of nurses'
continuing learning (CL) activities to nurses' knowledge of the innovation.
The ED mechanisms are the
structures and arrangements within the department that facilitate the dissemination,
learning, skill
development and implementation by the practitioner. The amount of diffusion
of the innovation--the
Guidelines for the Prevention of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections--was
measured by a 26
item test of nurses' knowledge, the Knowledge score. Questionnaires were sent
to 600 registered
nurses, 100 each from six hospitals. These provided data on nurses' knowledge,
CL activities, and
background characteristics. The data for the ED mechanisms, developed into four
scores, were obtained
from interviews with directors of nursing from the randomly selected hospitals.
Three-hundred fifty-four
nurses returned questionnaires with a range of 35% to 70% by hospital. Multiple
regression analysis
revealed a significant positive association between the Knowledge score (KS)
and two of the ED scores,
External Resource, and Participation. A significant negative association was
observed between the KS
and the Internal Resource score. The Action score was not significant. The KS
and the nurses'
Professional CL score were positively and significantly associated. In addition,
three nurse background
characteristics were significantly associated with higher knowledge: never married
vs. sometime married,
employed part-time vs. full-time, and Associate degree vs. Diploma. The findings
suggest that hospitals
having specific resources and greater nurse participation employ registered
nurses who have greater
knowledge of the innovation.
Social
Systems Simulation Group
P.O. Box 6904 San Diego, CA 92166-0904 Roland Werner, Principal Phone/FAX (619) 660-1603 |