Clinical Practice Specialist Valley Hospital Hillsdale, New Jersey, United States
Description: Nursing engagement has been well documented in the literature to play a huge role in nsg satisfaction, pt satisfaction, & commitment of RNs to the nsg profession & to their place of employment. The review of the literature is lacking in investigating whether post-op visits to pts would increase the level of perioperative RN engagement. Exploring the post-op pt visit & its significance on RN engagement may reveal an increase in the emotional commitment nurses have to their organization & to the work they do. This quantitative descriptive study will utilize the Ultrecht Work Engagement Scale instrument.The tool will be administered to OR RNs pre- & post-intervention at a community hospital in northern NJ, to discover if there is an increase in work engagement. The sampling technique is a nonprobability sample with a convenience sampling approach. Nurses working in the OR will be asked at a staff meeting if they would like to voluntarily participate in this study.The purpose, its relevance, consent process,& what is involved for the participant will be discussed. Inclusion criteria for participation is RN must be employed in the OR for > or =1 year. Exclusion criteria would be RNs that are employed <1 year. Each participant will sign a written consent with an explanation of the study, its purpose,importance,& implications towards RN engagement, as well as an assurance of strict confidentiality & anonymity in survey responses.The participant may withdraw at any time.Twenty participants will be asked to complete the pre-intervention survey + 4 demographic-related questions.The survey should take 5-10 minutes to complete.After completing,each participant will be asked to do post-op visits on admitted pts whose care they were involved in at least 1 day post-surgery when the pt is awake and able to interact with the participant. The participant will see the pt,introduce themselves as part of the team that was involved in their care,& let the pt know they are there to see how they are recovering. The visit is to connect with the pt on a personal level to see how they are feeling.Each participant will document how many pts they were able to visit post-op in a 2-week period. Optimally, at least 5 visits will take place per participant.The UWES survey questionnaire will be given to participants after 2 weeks.Participants will be asked to continue doing post-op visits, & document how many are done during the next 3 months.After 3 months, they will be given the UWES survey. Data will be analyzed using descriptive & inferential statistics in the form of frequency distribution, with percentages to be placed in pie charts, tables, &/or bar charts. SPSS analytics software will be used for accuracy. T-tests will be used to test the statistical significance between the mean & post scores. Repeated measures statistics will be used to compare the scores at points with respect to time. IRB approval has been given.