Autor(es):
Amaral, António Fernando Salgueiro 
; Vidinha, Telma Sofia dos Santos ; Cardoso, Maria Lucília
Data: 2013
Origem: Repositório Científico da Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
Assunto(s): Practice Environment Scale; Nursing; Nursing outcomes;
Descrição
Purpose: To acknowledge the nurses' perception about care practice environment in the portuguese context.
Methods: This study was undertaken under the scope Results of the nursing care: Quality and Effectiveness project (FCT-PTPC/CS-SOC/113519/2009), which is registered in the Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing and coordinated by Prof. António Amaral.
This was a correlational cross-sectional study. Data were analysed using SPSS 19.0. We used the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index, portuguese version (Amaral, Ferreira & Lake, 2012). It was composed of 31 items, grouped into 5 factors. Nurses had to mark their level of agreement whit each item on a scale of four points, from 1 (Strongly agree) to 4 (Strongly disagree). Lake (2002) proposes a neutral midpoint of 2.5 to analyze the mean scores of the factors and to facilitate comparisons between them. Purposive convenience sample was composed of all staff nurses from the 26 medicine and surgery wards of the 4 portuguese hospitals. Data were collected between July and August of 2012.
Results: 365 nurses responded to the questionnaire, registering a response rate of 66.19%. Nurses' ages vary between 24 and 59 years (mean = 35.15) and the time of exercise of the profession is on average 11.19 years. The mean composite of the averages of the factors was 2.55 on the 4 hospitals and when compared the means of the four hospitals by the teste ANOVA, there were no significant differences (p = .104). However, there was a mean below the neutral point in the dimensions Participation (mean = 2.22) and Resources (mean = 2.28). The factor which has a mean with the highest value was Quality of Care (mean = 2.95), and being verified an average of 2.81 in the sub-dimension Philosophy of Care and 3.27 in the sub-dimension Continuity of Care.
Conclusion: Regardless the hospital to which they belong, nurses have a positive perception about the practice care environment and give greater value to the quality of care they provide. However, they recognise that the environment is unfavorable to their participation in hospital decisions and to the creation of opportunities for their professional development, being therefore important create promoters strategies.
References:
Salgueiro Amaral, António Fernando; Ferreira, Pedro & Lake, Eileen (2012) "Validation of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) for the Portuguese nurse population". International Journal of Caring Sciences, 5(3), 280-8.
Lake, Eileen T. (2002) "Development of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index". Research in Nursing & Health, 25, 176-188.
