The aim of this study was to quantify the professionalism of nurses in Japan. The Japanese version of the Behavioural Inventory for Professionalism in Nursing was conducted as a national survey. Computer-generated random selection of nurses in Japan obtained responses from 1501 nurses. A descriptive design examined the levels of and differences in nursing professionalism. Comparisons of the total level of professionalism in educational preparation, current position, years of experience, and current practice setting were analysed by one-way analysis of variance and post hoc Tukey-Kramer multiple comparison test. The results revealed that Japanese nurses had low levels of professionalism, and professionalism was related significantly to higher educational preparation, years of experience as a nurse, and current position as a nursing administrator or faculty. The results can be used as a benchmark for continued assessments of the level of nursing professionalism and for further development of nursing professionalism.

The aim of this study was to elucidate characteristics of nursing performance among nurses with high emotional intelligence (EI) and examine the influence of years of experience on nursing performance and EI. A survey, including The Emotional Intelligence Scale and the Six-Dimension Scale of Nursing Performance, was administered to 1395 nurses working at general hospitals in Japan from November 2010 to March 2011. We received 1045 responses (76% response rate). There was a significant positive correlation between EI and nursing performance. Nurses with high EI reported more professional development activities, suggesting that they continue learning, attain licenses and actively improve their nursing skills. High-performing nurses had high situational abilities and showed improved nursing performance with experience. However, nurses with low situational abilities demonstrated no improvement in nursing performance related to experience. EI involves skills that can be acquired from training. Therefore, educational programmes to improve EI could improve nursing performance.

Awareness of extrinsic professional factors is important continually to maintain nursing professionalism. The findings of our study may help nurse managers to continue their self-development and to realise the potential of their nursing staff by developing professionalism. These findings also provide an understanding of international professionalism trends to achieve higher levels of nursing professionalism through the evaluation of professional nursing behaviours.

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