Analysis of the importance of nursing care and performance confidence perceived by nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit

Abstract

Purpose: Neonatal nurses are expected to have clinical competency to provide qualified and safe care for high-risk infants. An educational intervention to enhance nurses’ clinical competence is often a priority in the nursing field. This study was conducted to explore nurses’ perceived importance and performance confidence of nursing care activities in neonatal intensive care units.Methods: One hundred forty-one neonatal nurses from seven hospitals across South Korea participated in the online survey study. The scale of neonatal nursing care activity consisted of 8 subdomains including professional practice (assessment, diagnosis, planning, intervention, evaluation, education, research, and leadership). The Importance-Performance Matrix was used to analyze the importance of and confident performance in each of the nursing subdomains.Results: Both importance and performance confidence increased as nurses’ age (p=.042 and p<.001) and clinical experience (p=.004 and p<.001). Participants scored relatively higher in importance and performance confidence in the professional practice subdomains (assessment, intervention, evaluation), but scored lower in the education and research subdomains.Conclusion: To provide evidence-based nursing care for high-risk infants in neonatal intensive care units, educational interventions should be developed to support nurses based on the findings of the research.

Simulation Training Needs of Nurses for Nursing High-Risk Premature Infants: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The resultant minimum sample size was 90. The dropout rate was 0.7–11.6% in previous studies [ 2 , 26 , 28 ] and 1.0% in this study. Of the 100 respondents who were selected via convenience sampling, 1 provided an incomplete survey, making the final sample size 99.…”

“…The importance of nursing high-risk premature infants, as regarded by the nursery and NICU nurses was 3.78 (0.67) out of 5 points, while the performance was 3.69 (0.57) out of 5 points. The comparison was limited, as no prior studies had measured importance using the same measurement tool; however, the importance of the performance evaluation tool for NICU nurses by Park and Lee [ 30 ] was 3.70 (0.30) in a previous study [ 2 ] that targeted NICU nurses in Korea. Moreover, the NICU Developmental Supportive Nursing Importance Tool, used by Hong and Son [ 31 ] showed a score of 3.77 (0.74) in another study [ 26 ], obtaining results similar to those of this study, even though the performance was relatively lower in the two previous studies [ 2 , 26 ] at 3.50 (0.35) and 3.46 (0.81), respectively.…”

“…The comparison was limited, as no prior studies had measured importance using the same measurement tool; however, the importance of the performance evaluation tool for NICU nurses by Park and Lee [ 30 ] was 3.70 (0.30) in a previous study [ 2 ] that targeted NICU nurses in Korea. Moreover, the NICU Developmental Supportive Nursing Importance Tool, used by Hong and Son [ 31 ] showed a score of 3.77 (0.74) in another study [ 26 ], obtaining results similar to those of this study, even though the performance was relatively lower in the two previous studies [ 2 , 26 ] at 3.50 (0.35) and 3.46 (0.81), respectively. The difference appears to have arisen in Lim et al [ 2 ] due to measuring performance converted into performance confidence.…”

“…Premature infants are defined as those born before the 37th week of pregnancy and their number has been increasing due to reasons such as the aging of mothers, increased high-risk pregnancy and assisted reproduction, and advances in medical technology and equipment [ 1 , 2 ]. Globally, premature infants account for 11% of all births, at 15 million each year; of these, 10–15% are treated and nursed in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) [ 3 , 4 ].…”

“…Nursing premature infants is a highly professional and complicated task. As their prognosis can differ significantly, depending on the passage of treatment time, the status of premature infants must be quickly and accurately assessed and specialized nursing interventions must be provided [ 2 , 3 ]. In particular, respiratory issues commonly occur in premature infants due to insufficient pulmonary surfactants, and healthcare workers’ ability to respond to emergencies is directly related to their survival and prognosis [ 5 ].…”