Registered nurses' perceptions of being present for their patients

Abstract

<p>Evidence-Based Practice Session. The process of providing nursing care encompasses technical knowledge-based psychomotor skills as well as the interpersonal connection with patients. The Presence of Nursing Scale-RN version (PONS-RN) was developed to measure this phenomenon of both "doing for" and "being with" patients from the nurse's perspective. Content validity was established by two experts in nursing presence. Content adequacy was determined by 21 registered nurses currently working in a direct caregiver role. This resulted in a 32- item instrument with items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The PONS-RN was tested with 89 RNs working in a Veterans Affairs hospital and extended care facility. Psychometric assessment of the PONS-RN demonstrated evidence of reliability and validity. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a two-factor model: Factor One "Doing For" (12 items) and Factor Two "Being With" (6 items). These factors are congruent with Paterson and Zderad's Humanistic Nursing Theory (1976) which provided the framework for this study. Reliability was demonstrated with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of .916 for Factor 1(Doing For) and .877 for Factor 2 (Being With). The PONS-RN demonstrated significant positive correlations with practice environment (r = 0.243, p=0.024) and job satisfaction (r = 0.260, p=0.016). Nurses with extraverted personality types scored significantly higher on the PONS-RN (t (81) = -3.061, p&lt;0.01) than nurses with introverted personality types. These results provide initial evidence to support the use of the PONS-RN as a measure of nursing presence in overall evaluation of the quality of nursing care delivery. References: Paterson, J. G. &amp; Zderad, L. T. (1976). Humanistic Nursing. New York: National League for Nursing.</p>